


Team Rin

by Dreyden



Category: Naruto
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Different Chunin Exam, Different Sensei, Emotional Baggage, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, No Wave, Team 12, Team 7 - Freeform, Team Rin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-02-15 21:58:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 86,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2244792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreyden/pseuds/Dreyden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We all know the story of Naruto on Team 7, but what if he was trained under a different Sensei? With different teammates? How would Naruto have developed under Rin, Kakashi's forgotten teammate? For better or for worse, different experiences will lead to a different Naruto.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The S Class Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: None of the work herein has been created for profit purposes. I'm only using this world as an exercise to improve my writing.
> 
> Summary: We all know the story of Naruto on Team 7, but what if he was trained under a different Sensei? With different teammates? How would Naruto have developed under Rin, Kakashi's forgotten teammate? For better or for worse, different experiences will lead to a different Naruto.
> 
> A/N: Heavily edited as of 3/23/2016. You will notice a pretty hefty dip in the quality of writing between this chapter and the next few, but I am working on getting them all up to snuff, and I hope you will make it through to the better chapters that more reflect my current skill.
> 
> Basically taking out a few of the typical cliches that you see in fanfic that did not belong here, as well as shoring up a ton of internal consistency stuff that needed to be taken care of for the story to remain true to itself down the road.
> 
> Not to mention a huge jump in the quality of writing since I first published this here. Even if you've read the chapter before, I encourage you to do so again, and let me know what you think in a review!

“Good morning, class.”

Naruto held his breath as his classmates returned their teacher’s greeting in bored voices. Iruka-sensei wore a smile as he sat at his desk, and Naruto suppressed a snicker.

“Alright everyone, your graduation exam is just about a month away,” Iruka-sensei said, moving to stand. “I thought it would be best to—” The chūnin instructor cut himself off with a yelp as he stumbled forward, crashing to the ground with his chair stuck to his ass. There was a moment of stunned silence before Naruto led the way into the class erupting in laughter.

_That was great! Operation Iruka Faceplant: success!_ Naruto thought with a grin.

Iruka disentangled himself from the chair with a glow of blue energy around his rear, and glared around the classroom with a faint blush. The class’ merriment died down under his gaze, and the young teacher studied his student’s with a firm frown.

When the teacher’s attention made it to Naruto, the blond did his best to school his features, but the chūnin’s eye twitched and Naruto knew he had been made.

“Naruto, stay after class.”

Most of the students laughed again at his expense, even as Naruto grinned sheepishly at the attention.

“Now, as I was saying…”

#

Iruka stared down his student, taking little joy at how the continued silence made Naruto squirm in his seat. The remainder of the school day had seen the blond acting as his normal rambunctious self despite getting called out in front of the class.

“What’ll it be this time, Iruka-sensei?” The kid asked, rubbing the back of his neck and offering the start of a wide smile. “Mopping the floors? Cleaning the blackboards?”

Iruka sighed at Naruto’s nonchalant tone. The boy had grown familiar with all of the typical punishments, and Iruka wondered if it was even worth bothering to try and teach him a lesson anymore. He recalled his own history of acting out and sighed, wondering if he could reach Naruto as the Sandaime Hokage had reached Iruka.

“Sensei?” Naruto’s concerned tone brought Iruka back to the present.

“Naruto…” He trailed off, a spark resembling an idea that might become a plan guiding him forward. “Why do you want to be a ninja?”

Naruto blinked, looking taken aback.

“Because I’m going to be Hokage someday!” he declared as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Iruka repressed his usual grimace at the lofty goal, having trouble fathoming how _far_ Naruto was from ever achieving it.

“How?” he asked instead, keeping his face neutral. “How are you going to become Hokage?”

Naruto did not hesitate in his answer, “I’m going to be the strongest ninja Konoha has ever seen, dattebayo!” Naruto grinned. “Then everyone will have to acknowledge me as Hokage.”

His reasoning was flawed, but Iruka latched onto the opening it provided.

“And how can you be the strongest ninja if you never pay attention in class?” He kept frustration and dismissal far from his tone. He could not afford to put the kid on the defensive too quickly.

Still, when Naruto scoffed at the question, it was all Iruka could do to keep his reaction limited to a twitch of his left eye.

“Neh, come on Sensei. Nobody needs to know all the stuff you talk about in class to be a ninja,” Naruto whined, holding his arms behind his head and leaning back in his chair to balance it on two legs. Iruka forced himself to remain calm.

“What’s a shinobi’s greatest weapon, Naruto?” He could not help the irritation starting to bleed into his voice.

“Er, strong jutsu?” Naruto half-asked, scratching his cheek in thought.

Iruka pinched the bridge of his nose, the puckered skin of his scar rough against his fingers. This was only the most important lesson he tried to drive home to his students from the word go.

“No, Naruto. A ninja’s best weapon is their mind.”

Naruto’s brow furrowed in thought, and Iruka felt the fleeting hope that he had cracked Naruto’s thick skull.

“I don’t get it.”

Iruka’s head hit his desk with a dull _thump_.

“Let me try putting it this way, then,” Iruka said after taking a moment to recover. “What is the Sandaime Hokage’s nickname?”

“The Professor,” Naruto said without hesitation.

“Right, and why is he called that?”

“Because he knows a bunch of really strong jutsu!” Naruto declared with a snap of his fingers. “So I was right!”

“That wasn’t the point,” Iruka said, sighing. “How do you think Sandaime-sama learned all of those jutsu, Naruto?”

“…by training?” his student said as if it were a trick question.

“You’re half right. Hokage-sama became so powerful because he trained and _studied_ his ass off.” Iruka saw something approaching thoughtfulness move in Naruto’s eyes and went in for the kill. “At one point, though, Hokage-sama was exactly where you are now.”

Naruto started to grin and give a thumbs up, but Iruka plowed on.

“The difference, though, is that the Hokage actually _applied_ himself into mastering the basics and wasn’t pulling useless pranks so people would give him the time of day.”

Naruto’s face fell and Iruka’s gut twisted, but he did not let his guilt show on his face. It was not easy to break a kid’s bad self-image like this, but he _had_ to try.

“Without mastering the basics, the Sandaime would never have become as powerful as he is. The same goes for every other Hokage and powerful ninja in our history.” Iruka braced himself for the finishing blow. “As of right now, Naruto, I doubt you’ll even graduate, and you’ll never have a chance to event _try_ to get to their level.”

Betrayal, anger, and defiance all shined in Naruto’s blue eyes behind a film of unshed tears. Iruka’s years of training kept his expression guarded.

Naruto opened his mouth to speak, but Iruka cut him off. “I tell you this because I _do_ believe you have it in you to be great, Naruto.” The dark emotions in the boy’s eyes disappeared in a flash of shock.

“You… believe in me?”

Iruka blinked, unable to hide how surprised he was by the _fragility_ in Naruto’s tone. Perhaps he had gone too far?

“I do,” Iruka said with grim sincerity. “If you apply yourself, master the basics in time to graduate, then the sky’s the limit for you, Naruto.”

Naruto burst from his seat, jaw set and a finger pointing right at Iruka’s face. The light caught his eyes, setting them to burn a blue blaze of determination. “Then you got it, Iruka-sensei! I’ll get the basics down better than anyone else and surpass the old man in no time, dattebayo!”

Naruto grinned, and Iruka found it infectious as he nodded his agreement. The student waved and shot out the door with the energy that came with youth, and Iruka could only hope his latest lecture had actually taken root in Naruto’s psyche.

Only time would tell.

#

Sarutobi Hiruzen took a deep drag on his pipe as he sifted through the last pile of paperwork on his docket for the day. The heat warmed his throat and lungs, comforting him as he tore through the bureaucratic necessity with practiced ease. He rushed the process, eager to move onto one of the few duties he could say he enjoyed without caveats.

With the newest class of genin set to graduate in less than a week, it fell to the Hokage to study the likely graduates and match them best with a jōnin instructor. This particular class not only contained the heirs to six of Konohagakure’s most prominent clans, but also had more potential from the remaining students than average batch of rookies.

He grinned around his pipe. It did an old man’s heart well when the next generation showed such promise.

A knock sounded on his door, followed by the muffled voice of one of his secretaries. “Hokage-sama, your appointment is here.”

Sarutobi’s smile faded and he applied his signature to one last piece of paper. “Send her in!” he called, and settled back in his chair to grant his guest with his full attention.

“You asked to see me, Hokage-sama?” Nohara Rin asked, standing at attention just inside his office’s doorway.

Sarutobi studied his jōnin for a long moment, frowning at her tense stance. She opted to wear her jōnin vest, stiff from disuse, over her typical dark purple shirt and black shinobi-standard pants – both pressed and flawless in their presentation – and her normal, haphazard bun of brunette hair had been traded in for a disciplined ponytail. It was the most formal the Hokage had seen her in almost a decade.

Feeling a wave of guilt, he wondered when the last time he spoke to her beyond their monthly meetings had been.

“How are things, Rin?”

His chief medical shinobi blinked at him as if he were a simpleton.

“As I said in my report last week, Hokage-sama,” she said after a pregnant pause. “The hospital’s operations are running at peak efficiency. We’ve just had a fresh group of chūnin recruits that made the grade out of Genin Corp., and Iyasu-san is confident he can have them on the floor within a half year.”

Sarutobi hummed at her report, nearly a word for word retelling of the update she had provided the week before. In her time at Konoha General, Rin had risen through the ranks with adept skill in medical jutsu, and, since her taking over as Chief, the medical corp. had steadily bloomed in size.

But that was not why she was here, and Sarutobi suspected she knew it.

“Your remarkable work aside, Rin,” he said, setting down his pipe and locking eyes with the jōnin. “But you did not answer my question. How are things with _you_?”

A slight shift in the shoulders and the almost indistinguishable agitation of the chakra were Sarutobi’s only indication of Rin’s reaction.

“There is nothing extraordinary to report, Hokage-sama. Everything is fine.” Unspoken, but clear in her tone was the question of _why_ was he asking?

The bags under her eyes not quite hidden beneath a subtle layer of makeup and her skin’s complexion being pale enough for the rectangular, purple markings crossing her jaw on each cheek to stand out like beacon’s in the night would have been worrying on their own, but dismissible as the result of issues he trusted his jōnin to manage on their own.

But there were always exceptions, and when trusted colleagues reported their concern, Sarutobi paid closer attention.

And her worried at what he saw.

“How long has it been, Rin, since you’ve left the village?”

Rin frowned, before answering. “Nearly eight years.”

“And in that time, I’ve been told you have gradually cut yourself off from your peers?”

“I’ve been busy running a hospital,” Rin said, heat entering her voice.

“And your colleagues speak nothing of praise for you, but none seem to know you well outside of your roll. Others have come to me to express their concern—”

Rin palmed her forehead, daring to cut off Sarutobi for the first time.

“Kakashi,” she said with a long suffering sigh. Sarutobi kept his expression neutral, unsurprised she had guessed correctly. The two former teammates had not spoken in years, from what he gathered, but that had not stopped Kakashi from bringing his troubled beliefs to Sarutobi’s attention.

“Regardless of my sources,” Sarutobi said, leveling a firm gaze on Rin until she sank back into her formal stance. “To a shinobi, isolation only ever ends in disaster.”  Rin’s jaw tightened and Sarutobi took a subtle breath, preparing for the fallout. “You are being reassigned—”

“Sir!” Rin objected, façade of formality fading in lieu of despair. “I’ve given _everything_ to the hospital ever since—”

The Hokage held up a hand, and his jōnin fell silent.

“The decision has been made, Rin.” He tapped a paper on his desk, the list of all potential genin in this year’s academy class. “You are to lead a team of rookie genin as their jōnin commander.”

She blanched. “You want _me_ teaching? After everything?”

“There are few things better for the mind and soul,” Sarutobi said, softening his tone with a smile. “Than passing on knowledge to the next generation. I have little doubt you will make an excellent teacher, Rin.”

He saw her jaw work itself behind closed lips as she constructed arguments in her head, keeping her brown eyes locked on Sarutobi’s. He bore the brunt of her stare for long minutes before the set of her shoulders sagged in recognition of the inevitability of his victory.

“Can I at least see a list of students?” She asked.

He slid the paper toward her and she snapped it up, eyes flicking over the names in rapid movements until she discovered the name Sarutobi knew would give her pause.

“ _If_ I’m going to do this,” she said, and Sarutobi did not press her illusion of choice. “I want Sensei’s son.” She placed the list back down on the desk, two fingers pressing against Naruto’s name and her jaw set in stubborn demand – a flash of the girl she had once been.

Sarutobi inclined his head in agreement. Preassigned placements were not common, but neither were they unheard of. With Uchiha Sasuke already destined to be tested by Kakashi, few would be able to object to Naruto being placed as well.

“Should he pass the graduation exam,” Sarutobi said with an air of finality. “Uzumaki Naruto will be a member of your genin team.” He was pleased to see something akin to a smile flicker across her lips, if only for a short moment. “Now, I’m sure you have a good deal of preparations to make for this transition…”

“Yes, Hokage-sama,” Rin agreed, making to take her leave with a bow.

He waited until she was just at the office door to speak a final word. “And Rin?” She paused, one hand on the door fame, and looked to him over her shoulder. “My office is always open to my shinobi, for whatever the reason.”

She stood for a long moment, before nodding and taking her leave.

Hiruzen packed fresh tobacco in his pipe and sighed, wondering how the actions of the day would affect the future. He could only hope that joy of shepherding a genin team could spark Rin’s will of fire. As he let out a puff of fresh smoke, he resigned himself to the familiar ritual of waiting.

#

“Damn it!” Naruto cursed as _another_ leaf exploded on his overturned palm, leaving a fresh, stinging patch of singed skin to join the dozens of others. He had been at this exercise for weeks and had made little progress. The rest of his class could perform the leaf sticking chakra control technique, and Naruto felt no small amount of frustration over why he still could not.

With a growl he picked up another leaf and took a deep breath. _Focus on your chakra, guide it to your hand into the leaf so it stuck, and_ … _Gah!_

“Stupid leaves!” He shouted, shaking out his smarting hand. The last few weeks had been a flurry of books, scrolls, and burned leaves for him. The day after his talk with Iruka-sensei, Naruto had gone back to the teacher with a sheepish admission of not knowing where to start, and the chūnin instructor had provided him a lesson plan to follow.

With his taijutsu already passable, and both the **Kawarimi** and **Henge** mastered, Naruto only had to focus on his general knowledge and the **Bunshin**. He spent most of his days buried in books until he was ready to snap, or attempting to master the basic chakra control exercise that would let him perform the **Bunshin.**

The plan had Iruka-sensei’s guarantee that if Naruto followed it, he would pass the graduation exam without issue.

But with the exam tomorrow and the **Bunshin** still not mastered, Naruto began to doubt his teacher’s word.

“Yo, Naruto! Surprised to see you here at this hour,” said the grey-haired chūnin who had served as Iruka-sensei’s teaching assistant for almost all of Naruto’s time at the academy. The man approached with his hands stuffed in his pockets and his shoulders set in a slouch, looking as laid back as ever.

“Eh, what are you doing here Mizuki-sensei?” Naruto took advantage of the Academy’s training grounds, and the place was almost always deserted by this time of the evening.

“Oh, just checking on a few things for Iruka,” he said with a shrug, eyes crinkling as he smiled. “Are you ready for the exam tomorrow?”

Naruto hung his head, downcast.

“I’m trying to get this chakra control stuff down, but I don’t think I’ll do it in time.” It was a hard thing to admit, but Mizuki-sensei never judged him when he couldn’t do something.

“Yeah, that’s rough, but maybe…” Mizuki-sensei tapped his chin in thought, looking Naruto up and down with squinted eyes. “Nah, I probably shouldn’t tell you this…”

“Tell me what?” Naruto asked, unable to stop his curiosity.

“Well, if you’re going to be Hokage someday, I guess it would be great if you owed me one, right?” Mizuki smiled, snapping his fingers and Naruto felt his chest puff up in pride. “All right, I doubt I can help you get chakra control down in time,” he admitted, and Naruto’s brief hope deflated. “But I _can_ tell you how to graduate.”

“How?” Naruto asked, head snapping up to catch Mizuki-sensei’s eyes. If there was a way around getting the **Bunshin** down, he would go for it.

Mizuki-sensei cast a look around before leaning over and beckoning Naruto closer. He spoke in a whisper.

“There’s a secret test. It’s dangerous enough that we only ever offer it to the best of the best students. Not even _Sasuke_ knows about it, but I’ve seen how hard you’ve been working, and I think you can pull it off.”

Naruto’s heart sped up and he bounced on the balls of his feet. Iruka-sensei had been right, mastering the basics was already paying off!

“If you manage to pass, though, you’ll be promoted to genin straight away without having to take the Academy exam!” Mizuki-sensei shared a grin with Naruto. “Interested?”

“Of course! I can take on whatever it is, no problem!”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.” Mizuki-sensei pulled a scroll out of his back pocket and rolled it out onto the ground, showing blueprints labeled The Hokage Tower. A red ‘X’ marked a room right by the old man Hokage’s office. “There’s a special scroll in the Hokage tower reserved for this test,” the teacher explained, pointing toward the ‘X.’ “Get in without being stopped, grab the scroll off the pedestal, and find your way out.”

“What’s on the scroll, Mizuki-sensei?” Naruto asked, mind whirring as his blood pumped in anticipation. He was the first one in the class to go on an actual mission! _Take that, Sasuke-teme._

“And that’s the best part,” Mizuki-sensei said, furling up his blueprints. “There’s a bunch of special jutsu available to only those strong enough to pass the test.”

Naruto’s eyes glazed over as he considered the endless possibilities.

“You won’t have much time.” Mizuki-sensei studied the sun as it sank in the sky. “Get the scroll to me in training ground twenty-nine by ten o’clock. Think you can handle that?”

“Definitely.”

“Good, and one more thing.” The chūnin ran a hand along the back of his neck, suddenly sheepish. “I’m sort of doing this behind Iruka’s back since he didn’t think you’re ready for this yet. So let’s both prove him wrong, eh?”

Naruto’s excitement died at the thought of Iruka-sensei not believing in him as much as he claimed to have, but his determination remained solid in his belly, pushing him forward to prove the chūnin wrong.

“I won’t let you down, Mizuki-sensei! Dattebayo!”

He raced off toward the Hokage Tower, knowing exactly how he would get past the old man.

#

Rin strolled through the streets of Konoha just as day surrendered itself over to twilight. She did not often make a habit of wandering around the village without purpose, but found it had helped keep her calm in the days since her meeting with the Hokage.

It had been a shock when the man confronted her with his concerns and made his decision, and she had not regained her balance since. She had worked her ass off to get Konoha’s medical corp. back into tip top shape, taking pride in how well it performed. She left everything in her work, and wanted little to do other than keep to herself in her downtime.

Rin thought the village owed her that much, at least, but it was apparently too much to ask for.

She shook her head and sighed. Ever since he had been released from duties as an ANBU, Kakashi had upped his efforts to claw his way back into her circle. The man must have gone to the Hokage rather than understand the fact that it was better if she had _nothing_ to do with him, and managed to take away the won thing in this damned village that she found worth her time.

She let out an irritated huff of air and tried not to think how Iyasu would bungle all the progress she had made at the hospital. The man was second only to her in ability, but was prone to nervousness and had been an absolute wreck ever since he found he was to take over her position – possibly for _years_. Dealing with Iyasu as a shadow all week had been a miserable and trying experience.

She took a turn and found herself staring up at the faces carved into the side of the Hokage Mountain. She met the stony gaze of her sensei’s likeness with a frown, wondering how he had ever managed to corral her, Obito, and Kakashi into a respectable squad of shinobi.

After working nowhere outside of the hospital for seven years, she held her doubts she could match his proficiency.

The thought of three young, impressionable minds looking to her as she had once looked to Minato-sensei made her stomach drop and she longed for the days where she could show up at Sensei’s doorstep begging for advice.

But the Kyūbi attack took that option away from her years before, and Rin tried to ignore the familiar ping of impotent regret.

Dwelling in the past did little good.

Instinct guided Rin to step off to the side before her ears registered the commotion caused by a pair of chūnin racing by her and taking the next opportunity to leap toward the rooftops. She blinked at their unusual urgency, and tilted her head to hear if she had missed any of the village’s warning sirens.

She heard none, but grew worried when the heavy footfalls of at least three teams of shinobi all sounded on the roof above her, speeding toward the back of the village. Curiosity piqued, she jumped to the rooftops and gave her colleagues case. The lack of effort it took her to catch up to one of the runners indicated he was, at best, a chūnin.

“What’s going on?” She asked, tone clipped. The twenty-something-year-old glanced her way and she found him vaguely familiar, recognizing the long scar running below each eye and across his nose.

“Iryō-san?”

_Ah, a patient_ , she identified, nodding at his question.

“Hokage-sama sent flyers to the active chūnin in-village. There weren’t many details, but it has to be big,” the chūnin said, waving an arm out to the other shinobi joining them as they approached the Hokage Tower. Rin judged there to be several dozen. She hummed her agreement at his assessment and tagged along, deciding the distraction it offered would do her well.

The arrived in the middle of a pack of shinobi and watched as the Sandaime studied the group with a steely gaze hinting at skilled shinobi beneath his typical façade.

“About one hour ago,” their commander spoke as the ebb of arriving ninja slowed to nothing. “Konoha’s scroll of forbidden techniques was stolen.”

Surprised, panicked murmurs broke out around her, but Rin narrowed her eyes at the old Hokage. Some of the techniques the scroll contained could spell disaster for Konoha if they ever fell into the wrong hands, so why had he summoned only chūnin?

“Who could have done this!?” A pale eyed Hyūga near the front asked in a shout, the veins around his eyes bulging in his clan’s ocular technique. The Sandaime closed his eyes, seeming to brace himself.

“Uzumaki Naruto.”

Rin’s heart skipped a beat as her would-be student was named and she felt a deep disappointment that settled right in her gut.

“ _What!?_ ” Her chūnin running-mate shouted, objection clear in his question. “Naruto would never do that, not even for a prank!”

“And yet he _has_ , Iruka.” The Hokage stretched himself up to his full height.” It is of the utmost importance that Naruto is found and brought to me _alive_. This will be considered a B-rank mission, and successful completion will be awarded accordingly. Dismissed!”

“How the hell did he even manage to pull this off?” Iruka muttered at her side, starting to march toward the Hokage even as his compatriots all left to see to the task. The chūnin spoke a few hasty words with the village leader before racing off in a direction opposite most of the others.

Rin followed behind Iruka at a relaxed pace, determining the man knew something the rest of their brethren did not.

#

Mizuki wore a wide grin as he jumped through the forests winding between Konoha’s training grounds. From the commotion in the village, he knew his plan had gone off without a hitch. Only the need for stealth kept him from laughing aloud.

Turning the Kyūbi brat’s newfound motivation for his own benefit had been brilliant, in Mizuki’s estimation. The Uzumaki being at the point where he would do _anything_ to pass made it all the easier. With any luck, Naruto would take the fall and nobody would notice Mizuki’s absence until the next day at the earliest.

“Yatta! I’ll pass the test for sure, now, dattebayo!”

Mizuki rolled his eyes and picked up his pace as Naruto’s excited shout echoed through the forest. If anyone was nearby enough to hear, he had gained a time limit.

“Naruto, what the hell were you thinking!?”

_Shit, shit, shit_. Mizuki stopped short just within the forest on the edge of training ground twenty-nine. _Of fucking course the bleeding heart would manage to get in my way_. Mizuki clenched his jaw and drew a kunai, waiting.

“Iruka-sensei, I passed the secret test! I even mastered a super strong jutsu, dattebayo!” Naruto laughed at his words, actually _bouncing_ on his feet.

 “Secret test?” Iruka looked at Naruto as if he had grown five heads. “Naruto, you stole the Scroll of Forbidden Jutsu; do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in!?”

Naruto’s joy died on his face at Iruka’s tone.

“Eh? Forbidden jutsu?” Naruto scratched the back of his head, looking at the scroll that rivaled the student for size through narrowed eyes. “Mizuki-sensei said this was a secret graduation scroll.”

_So much for getting out without suspicion,_ Mizuki thought, dropping from the trees to land behind Iruka in a crouch.

Iruka’s shoulders sagged as he spoke. “So Mizuki is the one that told you to do this.” The chūnin instructor shook his head, spiky, upturned ponytail swaying with the motion. “Naruto, you need to give me the scroll and we can get back to the village to set this straight.”

Naruto seemed torn and Mizuki considered his play. If he could kill Iruka in one blow, he would have little trouble taking out the kid and getting out. But if Iruka managed to survive a surprise attack, Naruto would have a chance to get away, and Mizuki was not certain he could take the other chūnin in a straight one versus one.

He blew out a silent breath and raised from his crouch, speaking, “Don’t be pissed just because the kid pulled one over on you, Iruka.”

His colleague spun around in a flash, putting himself between Mizuki and Uzumaki with a raised kunai.

“Toss over the scroll, Naruto, and I’ll make sure you pass despite Iruka’s interference.” Mizuki held himself ready to engage as he sidestepped opposite Iruka in a wide circle, trying to get closer to Naruto.

“Not a chance in hell. Naruto, you’ve got to run back to the village and get that scroll back to the Hokage. Do it now!”

“I—” Naruto gripped the scroll to his chest, torn. “This isn’t part of the test, is it?”

“There is no test!”

“That’s just what he wants you to think!”

“Naruto, _think_ ,” Iruka said. “I’ve done everything I can to help you graduate, why would I have reason to lie now?”

Naruto blinked, and Mizuki saw the moment he lost when the determinations settled in the student’s eyes.

“I can think of one hell of a reason,” Mizuki said, switching tracks. “Have you ever wondered why most of the people in the village treat you like crap, Naruto?”

“Mizuki, don’t!”

Hesitation faltered Naruto’s steps before he could run back toward the village. Blue eyes studied Mizuki with a cautious intensity of curiosity.

“It’s an S-rank secret,” Mizuki explained, not letting his eyes linger far from Iruka lest the chūnin opted to attack. “The Hokage made this information top secret on pain of death, but I think you deserve to know.”

“Tell me.” Naruto’s voice gained the rough edge that preluded tears.

Iruka’s eyes flicked toward the student, his guard opening for the briefest of seconds, but Mizuki took advantage. Steel flew through the air with a snap of the wrist, and a full brace of shuriken arced toward Iruka and Naruto with deadly intent.

Iruka caught the motion with wide eyes and leapt back toward Naruto rather than try to defend and Mizuki’s grin twisted as he awaited the victorious squelch of metal ripping through flesh and blood.

To his utter shock, his weapons were thrown off course by rival shuriken just as Iruka hugged Naruto close to shield the student with his body.

“Targeting an unarmed child is the act of a coward,” a cold, feminine voice called through the clearing. Mizuki snapped his attention to the left, sweat blooming on his brow as he recognized the newcomer as a jōnin from her dress. She stood firm, kunai in hand, and a look of utter distaste etched into her pretty features.

Mizuki felt his chance of escape fizzle with each passing moment. Iruka, he gave himself a good chance to handle. Naruto would be little more than a passing nuisance. But a jōnin?

He inched his hand toward the pouch on his left hip, his escape option inches and kilometers away.

“Turn yourself over, Mizuki,” the jōnin said, advancing. “The Hokage will be more lenient if you do.”

Mizuki _tsked_ and went all in, flashing his hand into his pouch and launching all of his smoke bombs at his feet while jumping with all his strength toward the academy student. It took less than a second to do, but the jōnin’s kunai still managed to slice across his hip in a bloody gash.

He grunted in pain and returned with his own volley of kunai and shuriken in the trio’s general direction, trying to orientate himself toward Naruto to make a play for the scroll.

“Naruto, protect the scroll!” Iruka’s shout sounded above the din of metal deflecting metal.

Mizuki spotted a flash of orange through the smoke and latched onto the back of the boy’s jacket, unleashing all of the killing intent he could muster as he spoke, “Give me the scroll, brat!”

Naruto did the unexpected and responded with a foot to Mizuki’s balls.

It took all of Mizuki’s willpower to stay on his feet as Naruto scrambled away.

“Come and get it, Mizuki-teme!”

The smoke cleared enough for Mizuki to see the blonde flipping him off. His left eye twitched as he pushed the pain out of his mind. He was going to _enjoy_ killing the brat. He leapt forward to give chase, but Iruka tackled him out of the air before he could get close.

“Keep away from him!”

If the air was not driven from his lungs, Mizuki would have made a quip about how Iruka resorted to brawling tactics.

He rolled with the blow, ignoring the instinctual panic coming with the inability to draw breath, got his legs underneath his opponent, and sent Iruka flying away from him and into a nearby tree with a satisfying _thunk_.

“ **Chakura no Mesu.** ” Almost bored, the jōnin took up a position between the recovering Iruka and Mizuki, her hands glowing blue as chakra shaped as blades formed an aura around them. “Leave him to me, Iruka.”

Iruka did not heed her advice, choosing to take up position next to her, and, to Mizuki’s irritation, the blond idiot of a student had picked up a discarded kunai and flanked the jōnin as well.

Without another option, Mizuki opted to cut and run.

He launched his remaining weaponry at the Uzumaki and sprinted in the opposite direction as fast as his chakra laced strides could take him. He registered Iruka crying out in anguish and allowed himself a moment of petty triumph.

Which was promptly stolen from him as fire erupted within his legs and they went dead beneath him.

He could not stop the scream from tearing from this throat, shouting his pain into the earth as he struck it face first. Mizuki could barely register anything outside of the agony within his lower limbs.

“I’ve torn the muscles in your legs clean from the bone. You’ve lost, Mizuki.”

Mizuki clenched his eyes shut at the jōnin’s words, and his only thought before falling unconscious was the hope he had taken one of them down with him.

#

“And will the traitor survive?” The old man asked, and Naruto wondered if all debriefings would be as boring as this one had proven to be.

He stood between Iruka-sensei and the jōnin who had helped them – Rin – as the Hokage asked them question after question without an end in sight. His enthusiasm for being part of something an _actual_ ninja would have been had dried up quickly after he had showed off his new **Kage Bunshin**.

“He’ll live to see his time with Ibiki-senpai,” Rin said, but scratched at one of the purple markings along her cheek. “Though he may never walk again. I _might_ have gone overboard.”

The old man grunted a laugh as he scratched words onto paper.

“What will be done with him, Hokage-sama?” Iruka-sensei asked with a grim tone.

Naruto marveled at how the chūnin could stand so composed with the entire upper right section of torso wrapped in fresh bandages. He had shielded Naruto from Mizuki’s final attack with his body, and Naruto refused to think what would have happened if Rin had not turned out to know medical jutsu.

The old man glanced toward Naruto before he answered. “Depending on the information Ibiki can retrieve, Mizuki will either be jailed…” the Hokage took a breath, locking eyes with Naruto. “Or executed.”

Naruto’s heart clenched at the word, and he could not help but wince despite his feelings toward Mizuki. The old man studied him for a long moment more before nodding and addressing the two older shinobi again.

“I believe that’s all I need this evening.” The Hokage closed the file he had been reading and smiled. “You three should get some rest, you all have exams to prepare for.”

Naruto hesitated as the other two bowed, and started talking before he chickened out. “Actually, old man, I have a question.”

Three sets of eyes locked onto Naruto, and he did his best not to fidget.

“Right before he attacked, Mizuki-teme said he know an S-class secret about me. He said he knew why everyone…” Naruto trailed off, not quite able to put words to his situation.

The Hokage sighed and took the time to pack his pipe with fresh tobacco and light it before he started to speak. “I had planned on telling this to you once you graduated, but I suppose that is all but a formality now.”

Naruto and the Hokage shared a brief smile at that.

“Do you know what happened to the village twelve years ago? On your birthday?”

_How could I forget_? “The Kyūbi attacked the village,” he said. There were still celebrations every year and it had been one of Iruka-sensei’s most repeated lessons. “The Yondaime sacrificed his life to kill it and save the village.”

The old man nodded along with Naruto’s explanation. “That is the story we tell, but it is not the complete truth.” Naruto frowned, casting an accusing look toward Iruka-sensei even as Rin muttered ‘understatement’ under her breath.

The chūnin teacher studied the ceiling rather than meet Naruto’s eyes.

“The Yondaime did sacrifice himself to stop the Kyūbi that night,” the old man continued. “But not even he had the power to kill a bijū. You see, Naruto, tailed beasts are not mortal creatures like you or I. They are beings of pure chakra. Should they somehow be slain, they will eventually reform again.”

Naruto scratched the back of his head in thought. _Makes sense, sort of._

“So how did he stop it?”

“There’s only one way to reliably keep a tailed beast under control.” The Hokage took a long drag on his pipe. “Using his unparalleled skill in fuinjutsu, the Yondaime sealed the Kyūbi away into a newborn babe, creating a jinchūriki.”

Naruto’s heart sank as he grasped the unspoken. “That was me, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” the old man said with a nod.

Naruto hung his head, understanding his situation more than ever before. Why the villagers always whispered as he passed. Why nobody ever acknowledged him. He was a demon.

His fists clenched.

“Naruto, I need you to listen to me now.” The Hokage’s tone drew Naruto’s eyes back up to the old man. Naruto could not remember the last time he saw the Sandaime so serious. “Despite what the uninitiated may think, jinchūriki are _not_ the beasts they hold within. The seal the Yondaime entrusted you with ensures that it is absolutely _impossible_ for the Kyūbi no Kitsune to influence you in any way.”

“I-I’m not a demon?” Naruto hated how his voice cracked even as relief washed his encroaching depression away.

“Absolutely not!” Iruka-sensei shouted, eyes fierce. Naruto’s chest lightened and he found he could breathe easier.

“You are you and only you, Naruto. I guarantee it,” the old man said with a wry smile.

“Minato-sensei’s seals were legendary, kid.” Rin spoke up for the first time with a smile that somehow seemed sad. “There’s no way he screwed up his last one.”

“Give it enough time, Naruto, and the villagers will see you as we do.” The Hokage finished, the skin around his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “A proud defender of Konoha.”

“I’ll just have to become strong enough that they’ll _know_ I’m not the Kyūbi, dattebayo!” He punched a fist into an open palm, feeling balanced for the first time since he had found the Forbidden Scroll.

“Assuming you pass your genin exam, Naruto.”

Naruto hung his head at Iruka’s words. Leave it to the teacher to bring him down from his moment.

“Alright, alright. Dismissed, all of you.”

Naruto left the Hokage’s office filled to the brim with a determination and standing taller with the gift of knowledge. He never would have guessed that knowing why everyone treated him as they did would make him feel so much better, and now he only had to show them all exactly who he was.

Jinchūriki or not, he was still going to become Hokage.

_Dattebayo!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited as of 3/29/2016

“ **Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!** ”

With a puff of smoke, two identical copies of Naruto popped into existence behind him, matching his widest grin. Iruka-sensei gave him a proud smile while the new teaching assistant watched, slack-jawed.

“Naruto,” Iruka-sense said, picking up one of the metal plated hitai-ates arranged on his desk. “From your overall performance, you’re last in your class.”

Naruto’s bubbling cheer fizzled at Iruka-sensei’s words. Did he have to bring that up?

“But I’m proud of the work you’ve put in this month, and I have no doubt that you will be a fine shinobi.” The teacher handed the hitai-ate to Naruto with a nod. “You pass, congratulations!”

Naruto pumped his fist in the air with a whoop of joy, good mood instantly restored. He snatched the hitai-ate, took a moment to run his thumb over the engraved symbol of Konoha’s spiral leaf, and with _just_ the right amount of fanfare, he yanked his old goggles off and tied the hitai-ate in its place.

The curved metal rested across his forehead, comfortably warm through its fabric backing, and Naruto felt as if a piece of him he had never known was missing had found its way back.

“How’s it look?” Naruto asked, unable to stop smiling.

“Like it fits,” Iruka-sensei said with a laugh before checking his watch. “How about I treat you to Ichiraku’s as a graduation gift? I just—”

Naruto did not have to be told twice and, before his teacher could rethink his choice, let out a hasty thanks to Iruka-sensei and ran out the door.

By the time his sensei caught up with him fifteen minutes later, Naruto was almost through his first bowl of Teuchi’s miso ramen.

“You’re never patient, are you?” Iruka-sensei asked him with a bemused grin as he sat down on the next stool over. “I still had to test Ino, you know.”

Naruto shrugged and focused on cowing down his food. Nobody in the village could even come _close_ to how amazing Teuchi’s food was. A comfortable silence fell between the two while Iruka ordered a bowl for himself and a second for Naruto.

“You know, Naruto, I’m proud of you.” Iruka-sensei said, and Naruto looked up from his noodles with a thankful grin. “Not just for _finally_ taking your studies seriously, but for how you handled the whole Mizuki situation. You acted like a true shinobi and didn’t let your enemy get into your head.”

“It was no big deal, Iruka-sensei.” Naruto rubbed a hand along the back of neck with a forced smile. Mizuki had come _close_ to making Naruto question everything.

“In a week, you’ll be assigned your jōnin sensei,” Iruka-sensei said, not noticing Naruto’s feint. “And I expect you will continue to work hard every day to be the best ninja you can be.”

Naruto felt sweat start to bead on his neck under Iruka’s intense gaze.

“But first,” the chūnin continued with the grin he wore whenever he assigned an unpleasant amount of homework. Naruto gulped. “You’re still under my jurisdiction until then, and you are going to master the leaf sticking exercise this week if it kills both of us.”

Naruto felt an odd mix of happiness that Iruka-sensei was still trying to help him, and irritation that he had somehow managed to get homework _after_ graduation. Iruka-sensei laughed at the look on Naruto’s face and tossed a pile of ryō down on the counter.

“I’ll see you bright and early at the Academy,” the teacher said, still grinning. “After we’re done, you might not even suck at chakra control!”

Naruto grumbled in indignation at Iruka-sensei’s parting remark. _Not my fault I have so much chakra…_

“Looks like Iruka left enough for another bowl,” Teuchi said, stroking his chin.

Naruto’s eyes lit up, extra work gone from his mind.

#

Naruto planted his feet, ending his run in a skid stopping at his old classroom’s door. “Sorry I’m late, Iruka-sensei!” He called, pushing open the door. Some of the class started to snicker as he stepped into the room and Naruto frowned, confused.

“Naruto,” Iruka-sensei said with a habitual sigh, but paused. “…why are you covered in leaves?”

Naruto blinked, and glanced down at himself. Sure enough, leaves clung to him all over his body, turning his jacket and pants into a motley of green and orange. With a swept the greenery away with a faint blush, holding his chin high.

He had only just mastered the leaf sticking technique the night before. _Guess I went a little overboard_.

“Just take a seat.” Iruka-sensei shook his head, but Naruto spotted the grin trying to form. He shot his teacher a thumbs up and ran to the closest open seat.

Next to Haruno Sakura.

He flashed her his best smile, but the pink-haired girl just rolled her eyes and made a show of turning her chair so her attention was on the last person in the row of three, Uchiha Sasuke.

Naruto felt the familiar pang of disappointment while also bemused that they no longer needed words to go through the motions of his crush’s rejecting him.

He shrugged and settled into his chair, _not_ thinking about kicking Sasuke’s ass as the Sakura tried to engage the boy in conversation.

“As of today,” Iruka-sensei began with a nostalgic tone, cutting off the class’ chatter. He leaned back against his desk and studied the room of students with a small smile. “You all will officially begin your careers as shinobi of Konoha. But before I tell you which jōnin you are assigned to, I wanted to take a moment to tell you how proud I am of all of you.

“From here on out, you will face challenges unlike anything you have seen before, but I have complete faith in your abilities to overcome anything the shinobi world throws at you. Just promise me you’ll come visit your old sensei when you become strong and famous, eh?”

There was a smattering of laughter as Iruka finished his short speech and the nervous energy in the room seemed to disappear.

“Now, let’s get to what you’re all excited for! Teams One and Two are still active, so we’ll start with Team Three…”

Naruto kept a sharp ear out as his pulse quickened. He had not put much thought into who would be on his team, and started to wonder who would be best. His lips quirked up into a grin as his mind imagined being on the same team as Sakura. He would get the chance to show her just how strong he was and convince her to finally go out on a date with him!

“And Team Seven will be made up of Haruno Sakura,” Iruka-sensei said and both Naruto and Sakura perked up at the girl’s name. “Uchiha Sasuke—”

Sakura’s joyful shout had Naruto slamming a hand to cover his left ear, wincing. “In your face, Ino-pig!” The kunoichi stood up from her seat, whirled around, and pointed a victorious finger in her blonde rival’s face.

“—and Yamanaka Ino…” Iruka finished, deadpan.

Sakura’s arm dropped as she glared at Ino, who laughed and leaned back in her seat, meeting Sakura’s eyes with a challenging eyebrow raised. Naruto spared a glance to the object of the girls’ affection and found Sasuke looked as stoic as ever as he looked out the window.

For the life of him, Naruto could not figure out everyone’s obsession with the Uchiha.

“You three will be under Hatake Kakashi.” Iruka-sensei shook his head as he scratched something off on his clipboard. “Team Eight…”

Naruto sighed, dejected. He glanced around the room and tried to judge who was left and would make an awesome teammate, and paused on Shikamaru and Chōji. They weren’t exactly _friends_ with him, but they weren’t—

“Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chōji, and Inuzuka Kiba will be Team Ten under Sarutobi Asuma.”

Naruto jolted to attention. _Team Ten, already? Did I miss my name?_

“…will form Team Eleven under Gekkō Hayate. And finally Team Twelve. Uzumaki Naruto,” Naruto breathed a sigh of relief. “Takawa Natsuko, and Kofuku Ayano.”

He frowned and glanced at the two girls. He did not know much about either other than one was part of the group that fawned over Sasuke, and the other never talked to anyone and came to class late a lot.

“You three will be under Nohara Rin,” Iruka-sensei finished, setting down his list. Naruto’s confidence in his team grew leaps and bounds.

_She kicked Mizuki’s ass with one move!_

“Your commanders will be along shortly,” Iruka-sensei said, inclining his head to the class. “Good luck!”

#

            “Damn it, Iyasu,” Rin muttered under breath as she raced through the Academy halls. Her replacement was to have taken over _hours_ ago, but the man did _not_ stop asking question after question to the point where Rin was now twenty minutes late to meet her genin.

She skidded to a halt to a halt outside the classroom and glanced through the door’s window. Six students sat around the room in various states of boredom, and Rin felt a fraction of relief at not being the last.

She took a breath, straightened her jōnin vest, and schooled her features as she entered the classroom.

“Sorry I’m late!” She said and six heads snapped her direction, all eager. “Team Twelve?”

Three of the genin hung their heads, dejected, but Naruto bounced of his seat with a grin, his teammates following at a more sedate pace.

_Kids must be Kakashi’s_ , she thought, sparing the three other genin a sliver of sympathy. “Eager, good,” she told her students. “Meet me at the training ground outside.”

Before the three could respond, Rin performed a silent and sealless **Shunshin**.

It wasted too much chakra to be useful in practical situations, but, she thought as she leaned against one of the wooden practice dummies lining the training area, first impressions were important.

“Whoa Sensei, that was awesome! How’d you do that?” Naruto’s enthusiastic shout had his teammates wincing.

“It was the Body Flicker Technique; a D-rank ninjutsu.” The redheaded Kofuku Ayano supplied with a disapproving frown. “Iruka-sensei showed it to us last month.”

“Eh?” Naruto rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish grin. “Guess I missed that day.”

Ayano looked away with a derisive sniff.

“All of us even tried to do it that day after class,” Rin’s third student, Takawa Natsuko said, tapping her chin with her eyes cast upwards in thought. “Not even Sasuke-kun was able to get it down though.”

“Where was I?”

“Probably in detention for one of your stupid pranks,” Natsuko said, clicking her tongue.

“My pranks aren’t stupid!” Naruto glared at the shorter girl, who matched his gaze without hesitation.

“Really? Who paints the Hokage Monument? Seriously!? Idiot,” the brunette accused with a point.

Rin’s stomach dropped at her team’s antics. Natsuko wore a condescending expression, Naruto was drawing breath for a shouted retort, and Ayano opted to bury her nose in a book.

She sent a silent prayer for patience.

“I--”

“Enough!” Her tone cut to something instinctive in her students as each of the genin snapped their heads in her direction, surprised as if they had forgotten she was there.

Her left eye twitched.

“As first impressions go,” she continued. “You three are terrible at it.” She met each of their eyes in turn, adopting her sternest look, and each student bowed their head in apology. She took the gifted chance to assess the genin.

Natsuko wore a sleeveless green shirt that fell to her mid-thigh, an abstract brown filigree design winding around the garment in a way that almost looked like a tree. Her black shinobi-grade pants tapered off into taped ankles over standard sandals, and her hitai-ate acting as a belt. With a bō staff strapped over her shoulders, a weapon’s pouch anchored on each hip, and her hair strung up in a high ponytail that reached the base of her neck, Rin judged her ready for combat, offering a nod unseen by the girl’s grey eyes.

The tallest genin, Ayano, had her hitai-ate holding back her shaggy red hair that fell just passed her neck. She dressed simply, with a blue long-sleeved shirt of heavy-material, and the same dark shinobi-grade pants and sandals most ninja in the village favored. What she lacked in fashion sense she made up for in practicality as Rin counted no short of a half-dozen weapon’s pouches lining her waist and legs. She opted out of the binding tape favored by most ninja, and Rin assumed the girl had _more_ weaponry hidden up her sleeves.

Naruto was far better equipped than he had been the previous night. She saw the telltale impression of mesh armor beneath his orange jacket with every breath the boy took, and pouches for kunai and shuriken hung off his belt at the back of his waist where there had been neither before. His hitai-ate glinted in the sun as he chanced a glance up to Rin, hesitant.

“If you’re done,” she said, softening her tone as her genin all raised their heads. “Now’s about the time where we introduce ourselves. Who wants to go first?” She received no volunteer as the genin glanced between each other, uncertain. She sighed. “…okay then, I suppose I’ll start. My name is Nohara Rin, and I’ve been a jōnin for just about six years now. I am—” she paused with a light grimace. “ _Was_ the head of Konoha General Hospital for the last three.”

The three genin seemed impressed at that and Rin allowed herself a small smile.

“I enjoy helping people and a quiet night with a good book or puzzle. I dislike idiots, slackers, and the ignorant.” She gave a pointed look to each of the three. “Finally, I look forward to teaching you and making you all into the absolute best shinobi you can be.”

She pointed to Naruto.

“Er, well,” the boy cleared his throat and stood to his full height. “My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and I like ramen and learning cool jutsu! I don’t like people who don’t like my pranks,” he said, giving a sidelong look to Natsuko, who glared back at him.

Rin closed her eyes for a brief second. _I will not kill my genin on the first day…_

“Hopes dreams, plans for the future?” She prompted.

Naruto grinned wide, a spark of determination lighting up in his blue eyes. “I’m going to be the greatest Hokage ever! Then everyone will have to acknowledge how awesome I am, dattebayo!”

Ayano looked at him as if he had grown a second head and Natsuko outright laughed at the declaration, incredulous. The blond boy deflated, but Rin interrupted before either of the girls could speak.

“That is an… admirable goal, Naruto.”

Naruto perked right back up as both girls shot her disbelieving looks.

“If you want to achieve it, then I expect you to do your very best to work hard, and I’ll do the same to help get you there.”

He gave her a sharp nod, eyes fierce. She smiled, then cut her eyes to the girl on his left, prompting her to speak.

“Well I’m Takawa Natsuko, and I’m going to follow in my brother’s footsteps to be the best sensor shinobi and bōjutsu expert in the village. I like Sasuke-kun, training with Mako-nii and my parents, and keeping up with the latest trends. And I dislike idiots,” she finished, giving Naruto a meaningful glance.

Rin bit back a sigh and motioned for Ayano to speak before the blond could retort and start arguing with Natsuko once more.

“Um, well.” The redhead started, shifting from foot to foot and not quite meeting Rin’s eyes. “My name is Kofuku Ayano. I like to write and read books by my favorite author.” Her pale cheeks flushed softly. “I don’t like my freckles and I hope to travel the world and become a strong ninja.” She gave an apprehensive look to her teammates as she finished.

_Well_ , Rin thought, _at least she didn’t pick a fight with the others_. Still, her team seemed destined to begin with a contentious atmosphere. Her mind wandered back to her early genin days when she and Obito had first joined Kakashi on Team Minato. She sighed; that had been a lifetime ago, now…

“Alright, well,” she said to fill the quiet. “Now that we all know each other, I can tell you that you have not quite made it to the genin level just yet.”

Three surprised shouts and objections greeted her at that. She held back a smile and raised a hand for silence. “I know you passed the Academy exam, but it takes more than that to become a true shinobi. Meet me at training ground twelve tomorrow morning at eight o’clock sharp.”

Tempting as the idea was, Rin did not stay around to enjoy the shocked look on her genins’ faces. She performed another silent **Shunshin** to make her escape before they could recover and bombard her with questions.

She heard three confused squawks as she raced away and grinned. There was nothing quite as effective as a common challenge to bring people together. Maybe her genin would surprise her and learn to get along?

#

“I can’t believe how unlucky we are.” Natsuko griped while watching the sky. “I mean, both Sakura and Ino get to be on a team with Sasuke-kun, and we get stuck with _Naruto_.”

Ayano, who was busy scribbling in a notebook, hummed in response. Natsuko gave her an odd look.

“Are you even listening?”

“No.” Natsuko went slack jawed for a moment at the blunt reply. Since her teammate was not paying attention, she tried to entertain herself by twirling her with her staff in a few basic maneuvers, but the silence quickly became too much.

“What do you think Sensei’s test will be about?”

“I don’t know.” Ayano had not even looked up from her notebook once. Natsuko frowned and rested her chin on her knees.

“What are you writing about anyway?”

The girl just shrugged. Natsuko furrowed her brow in frustration. She never usually had trouble carrying a conversation, but this girl just was not helping. “Do you have anything you want to talk about, then?”

“Not really.”

Natsuko sighed and fell backward. She never had trouble finding common ground with the other girls in class. They would always talk about Sasuke-kun, or class, or hobbies, or their training, or _something._ The fact that Ayano did not seem to have anything to say led Natsuko to one conclusion.

“You’re boring.” She whined while watching the clouds drift.

“And you’re annoying.”

Natsuko sat back up and glared at the redhead, who glared right back at her.

“Hey guys! How’s it going?” They both snapped their heads in the direction of the new voice. Naruto paled under their gazes. “Er, what’s wrong?” Natsuko held back a scoff. Like she would tell _him_ anything. Her parents had just reminded her the night before to always be wary around Naruto.

“Nothing,” She and Ayano said at the same time. Natsuko locked eyes with the freckled girl, glared for a second, and turned away from both her teammates with her arms crossed. She really was unlucky to be stuck with these two.

“I’m glad to see you’re all getting along so well this morning.”

Natsuko scrambled to her feet at her sensei’s sudden appearance. The jōnin was frowning at them, arms crossed over her flak jacket. “I trust you all came prepared?”

Natsuko nodded along with her teammates.

“Good.” Rin-sensei dug into her pocket and brought out two small, round bells. “This is your test.”

Natsuko glanced at the others, but they looked as confused as she felt.

“This is the same test I was given as a genin,” Rin-sensei said while tying the bells to her belt below the hem of her purple shirt. “Your objective is to get one from me by any means necessary. If you manage to get one, you become a genin. If you don’t, then you’re out of the program. For good.”

Natsuko felt her heart quicken in nervous anticipation. Sensei only had two bells, which meant that it would be impossible for all of them to pass. She glanced at her classmates, finding that they had realized the same thing.

This just became a competition.

“Remember, you will have to come at me without holding back at all if you want to have a chance at getting the best of me. Anything less and you won’t come anywhere close,” Rin-sensei said with a steely tone.

Natsuko felt a familiar determination fill her belly. One usually saved for beating the others to impress Sasuke-kun.

“You have until noon, begin!”

Natsuko wasted no time and sped away, intent to find a good place to observe her sensei without being seen. She found a likely tree and crouched in the upper branches, and turned to study her sensei.

“A direct attack? Not very clever.”

Natsuko’s eyes widened in surprise when she saw a dozen orange blurs charging at Rin-sensei. All twelve Naruto’s were shouting battle cries even as Rin-sensei weaved between them, striking each as she passed them. The clones burst into smoke at each strike, and the real Naruto was sent flying backwards across the clearing.

_Those clones were solid!_ Natsuko was simultaneously impressed and jealous that he could do that. _They definitely didn’t teach us that at the academy_.

Naruto shot back to his feet, rubbing his chest where Rin-sensei had hit him. He grinned and formed a ram seal, bringing another dozen clones into existence. Natsuko looked on in disbelief as Naruto tried the same tactic again, then again, and then _again_.

“You know, trying the same thing over and over again isn’t very bright,” Rin-sensei said in a dry tone as the brigade of Naruto’s ran at her once more. “I’m actually disappointed you couldn’t come up with anything better.”

Natsuko nodded her agreement to Sensei’s words. Once again, she bemoaned the fact that she got saddled with their class’ dead least as a teammate. Rin-sensei popped the last clone and kicked Naruto across the field and into the woods.

“You should just stop trying at this point!” Their teacher shouted, bored.

“No matter what, I never give up! That’s my nindo, my ninja way!”

Natsuko looked to Naruto with a disbelieving gaze as the boy came running out of the tree line with another contingent of clones. Rin-sensei shook her head and took her stance once again. Natsuko was not sure she had seen the women have to take a single step in any direction.

As the clones were bursting from existence, Natsuko wondered if she could use this to advantage. Maybe she could sneak up behind and…

Her eyes widened when another Naruto raced in from the opposite side of the clearing, behind Sensei’s back. Rin-sensei was so intent on the clones that there was no way she could notice the new Naruto in time. Natsuko held her breath in anticipation as the orange-clad genin got closer and closer to their sensei. A hand reached out, a bell jingled, and for a small moment it seemed like Naruto had won.

“Not quite!” Rin-sensei shouted, spinning away from the genin’s hand and grabbing Naruto by the back of his jacket. Sensei held him up to her eye level and smiled at him.

“Aw, Rin-sensei, how did you know I was there?”

“You were loud enough to wake the dead.”

The blond crossed his arms and pouted.

“Still, it was clever to make me think that you _weren’t_ clever!” Rin-sensei said, eyes crinkling in a smile. Naruto grinned at the praise. “But even with clones, you won’t be able to pull this off on your own.” With that, Rin-sensei spun and threw Naruto with great force.

Right at the branch where Natsuko was hiding.

Natsuko yelped and tried to dodge, but the genin was going way too fast. He crashed into her and sent them both sprawling to the ground. When she came to from her daze moments later, Natsuko found a stunned Naruto lying on top of her with his hands grabbing at her chest while he tried to climb off her. With a furious blush, she shoved the genin off of her and scrambled to her feet. She reached for her bō staff and swung it at the recovering Naruto.

“Pervert!” The staff thwacked off the back of Naruto’s head, sending him back down to the dirt, twitching. Natsuko glared at the fallen boy. She had not hit him _that_ hard.

“Your mistake was your inaction.” Natsuko jerked in the direction of the voice to find Sensei almost on top of her. Before she could bring her bō up to create space, Rin-sensei lightly tapped two fingers against her forehead, whispered words Natsuko could not make out, and Natsuko felt a undeniable need to sleep.

She could not stop her eyelids from closing as she succumbed to sleep.

#

Rin left the two lying just inside the wooded section of the training ground and made her way back to the center of the clearing. She was somewhat impressed by Naruto’s bait and switch with his clone tactics, but it had been far too simple of a charade to catch her off guard. Natsuko’s utter inaction grated on the jōnin’s nerves, but she forced herself to remember just how badly she had done when she was a genin.

She winced, thinking the genin should be glad that she did not know the Flying Thunder God technique.

The faint whistling of a kunai cutting through the air put her back into battle-mode. She took a quick step to the left, and the projectile sailed harmlessly by. Rin scanned the tree line for the source of the projectile, and spotted the barest of movements in the leaves.

It looked like Ayano was finally ready to unleash whatever it was she had been planning.

A volley of shuriken, from a different direction, caused Rin to leap to the right to avoid being shredded by the pieces of metal. The attack was quickly followed by wave after wave of shuriken and kunai, and Rin dodged every bit of metal with practiced ease, and judged which source of the weapons was an unmanned trap and which was her redheaded genin.

She danced closer the edge of the clearing where the genin was positioned, each projectile aimed too far behind her to pose any real threat, and her eyes widened in realization.

Ayano was either terrible at throwing weapons, or she was trying to guide Rin into this position. She got her answer a moment later when a tagged kunai landed in front of her. Rin acted immediately and was able to easily avoid the entire explosion, but she landed between a series of trees that were _covered_ in tags. Her eyes flashed over and analyzed them in a split moment and she smiled at her genin’s plan.

“Got you!” Ayano shouted, leaping down from the trees with her hands ready in a seal. Rin could have already used a **Kawarimi** to get away from the tags, but wanted to see what her genin planned to do. “Give me one of the bells, Sensei, and I won’t have to activate the tags.”

“I told you to come at me without holding back, Ayano,” Rin said without losing her smile. “As a kunoichi, you have to be willing to do anything to complete a mission. So go on ahead.”

To her credit, Ayano hesitated for only a moment before activating the tags. Rin slammed her eyes shut and sent chakra to protect her ears as the clearing was suddenly filled by an intense light and a deafening _boom_.

Knowing what was coming, Rin shot out a kick behind her hip holding the bells. Her foot dug into flesh and her knee absorbed all of the momentum of a charging genin taken to an abrupt stop. She let go of the chakra around her ear drums and opened her eyes to find Ayano doubled over in pain, wheezing for breath. Rin winced.

Perhaps that kick had been a little rough.

“Using flashbang tags instead of explosive tags was an interesting idea,” Rin said as she advanced on the incapacitated genin. “Especially after setting up the expectation with the kunai bomb.” She extended two fingers and placed them on the girl’s forehead. Green eyes widened in fear.

“But with only one attacker, I could have gotten away from your barrage of weapons very easily. Or I could have used a **Kawarimi** to get away from the tag trap without much effort. **Genjutsu: Fui Tsukare**.” Rin’s chakra pulsed in the familiar jutsu, and Ayano’s eyes fluttered closed.

She picked the slumbering genin up and brought her to her unconscious teammates. It had taken only an hour for all three to be disabled, and Rin estimated they would be unconscious for another hour and half or so. That would leave them with another ninety minutes before noon to pass the test.

Ayano was clever, Naruto was stubborn, and Natsuko packed a punch. She could only hope that the three of them had understood her rather obvious clues to succeed.

#

Naruto woke up with a groan. He blinked his eyes open to the sight of the forest canopy waving in the gentle breeze. At any other time Naruto may have appreciated the pretty sight, but the memory of how he had gotten knocked out filled him with a sense of urgency and he sat up quickly. It proved to be a mistake as he clutched the back of his throbbing head and fought the urge to throw up.

“You’re finally awake.”

Naruto opened a careful eye and saw both his teammates leaning against nearby trees. Ayano was rubbing her stomach with the occasional wince, and Natsuko was holding her left arm with her right hand. Naruto narrowed his eyes at her.

“You attacked me!” He accused. Natsuko glared right back at him.

“You were lying on me and grabbing at me!” Naruto blinked in disbelief.

“We just fell from a _tree_! I was trying to stand up!”

“Stop!” Ayano cut in before Natsuko could argue back again. “We only have an hour left in the test, and I don’t want to fail.” She tried to stand, but doubled over with a hiss of pain. “Sensei really hits hard,” she muttered, clutching her stomach again. Naruto nodded his agreement with an empathetic wince.

“What should we do? I mean, I didn’t even get a chance to do anything before Naruto screwed up and Rin-sensei used him like a kunai to take me out.”

“Hey! At least I _tried_. You were just sitting in the tree.”

“Idiot! I was trying to study her technique so I could find a weak point, just like Iruka-sensei said we should do.”

Naruto glared at her for the insult but Ayano perked up.

“Did you see anything useful?”

Natsuko deflated, looking sheepish. “Not really.”

“I didn’t either. She’s been toying with us.” Ayano sighed and rubbed her temples. Naruto wondered if her head hurt as much as his did. “Did she say anything to you two before she knocked you out?”

“Only that I should have acted…” Natsuko said, kicking a rock. “Though she didn’t even give me a chance like Naruto.” She grumbled.

“She told me that even with clones I couldn’t do it on my own,” Naruto said, scratching his cheek. He saw Ayano’s eyes widen and Natsuko took a sharp breath. He furrowed his brow, knowing he missed something.

“Rin-sensei told me that my plan wouldn’t work because it was too easy to counter since there was only one attacker,” Ayano said, slightly breathless. Naruto blinked, and the puzzle clicked in his head. They were supposed to work together.

“It can’t be that obvious.” Natsuko said with a frown. “There are only two bells. If we team up, how do we choose who gets one?”

“We couldn’t even come close to getting them on our own, so we don’t have a choice,” Naruto said, stretching his aching neck with a painful _pop_. “We’ll deal with the bell thing after we get them.”

“I agree with Naruto.”

He gave Ayano a winning grin. Natsuko looked between them and sighed.

“How do we do this, then?”

“I’m out of tags, but…” Ayano tapped her chin and hummed. “How much ninja wire do you two have?”

#

Rin opened her eyes with a soft smile as she heard the rustling movement in the trees around her. Now was the moment of truth. Would her genin come together and pass, or fail as individuals?

Rin surprised herself in hoping that they would pass.

Someone made a soft landing to her left, and Rin jumped to her feet and put her most neutral expression in place.

Natsuko stood in position, staff poised in a basic stance, but she was alone. Rin made a “come hither” motion, hiding her disappointment, and did not bother to take a stance.

Natsuko charged in, spinning and twirling her staff in a blur of brown and green. Rin ducked and dodged the staff’s swings, but Natsuko was quick in recovering from each miss. Rin soon found that, as long as she held back to a genin’s general level of speed, she would be giving ground.

Rin sighed, impressed at the potential she saw, but disappointed that her lesson had not sunken in. She hopped over a sweep at her legs and raised her fist to strike back at the genin.

The whistling of broken air stopped Rin before she could strike and she ducked out of instinct. A kunai flew over her head, and Natsuko had enough time to recover from her overextension. Rin could not stop the smile from creeping on her face even as Natsuko resumed her attack. If Ayano was acting as range support while Natsuko was on point; that meant it was up to Naruto to get the bells. Either they had figured out the test, or they were desperate.

Technically, Rin mused, either could lead them to passing if they played it right.

“ **Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!** ” Naruto’s shout reverberated through the grounds as ten of him charged out of the clearing from behind her. Rin let out a small chuckle.

She changed direction and leapt away from all of her attackers, but all eleven of them responded quickly. It was Natsuko that attacked her, and the clones only moved to periodically make an attempt for the bells or to stop her from striking Natsuko when a kunai or shuriken had not already forced Rin to dodge.

Still, she was picking off the clones at a decent rate, and she could see that Natsuko was tiring from the strain of keeping her staff in constant motion.

When Natsuko stumbled, Rin saw her opportunity.

She stepped forward to strike, ducking the expected shuriken, and she shot a fist out to take out Natsuko. Just as her fist was about to connect with the girl’s face, Rin felt a pulse of chakra and it was Naruto that she hit. Her punch caused him to burst in a cloud of smoke, and Rin had no time to be surprised as another volley of shuriken was heading her way.

She leapt over the assault, mind racing. That had to have been a **Kawarimi** , which meant that Natsuko had either been expecting it in order to not resist Naruto’s chakra.

“Naruto, now!” Ayano’s shout was sudden and _close_. Rin looked up to find the girl in the trees above her, wire grasped in her hand. The redhead leapt down from the tree, and Rin heard the chilling, familiar sound of a ninja wire trap being sprung.

“ **Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!** ” Rin snapped her head up to find at least fifty clones descending on her. With the rain of clones and the swiftly encroaching wire, Rin had nowhere to run.

Luckily she did not have to.

“ **Kawarimi,** ” she whispered, trading places with a log. She watched from a nearby tree as her genin’s plan came to an end.

Natsuko and Ayano each held firm on an end of ninja wire, keeping the trap in place. A pile of Naruto clones was on top of the trap and, she guessed, were supposed to retrieve the bells. Had she not been a jōnin of considerable skill, Rin thought that there was a slight possibility of the plan succeeding.

She was pleased.

“Did you get them?” Natsuko asked through labored breaths. Rin knew that the girl had given her all trying to force her into the proper position.

“No way!”

Rin’s grin widened at Naruto’s anguished cry. The clones began popping away one by one, eventually revealing that they had been piling on top of a non-descript log. She probably enjoyed the shocked disappointment on their faces far too much.

“Well done you three!” she called with a kind smile. The trio snapped their heads around and looked at her with a mixture of apprehension, awe, and fear. “You pass!”

Three matching expressions of dumbfounded eyes greeted her.

“But…the bells?”

“The bells were never the real objective.” Rin explained. “The challenge was for you three to come together to try and achieve a common goal, despite knowing that not all of you would share the reward.” Dawning recognition shined on the three young faces.

“You can be the strongest shinobi in the world, but you won’t last long if you don’t have anyone at your back,” Rin said, recalling the very same lecture Minato-sensei had given her and her teammates years ago. “It is teamwork that makes shinobi truly powerful. Allies can lift ninja up to places far beyond their normal potential, and give you a chance to take on enemies much stronger than yourselves. Understand?”

The three nodded, and Rin gave them a warm smile. “Now go home and rest. We have training tomorrow at eight.” With that, she used a **Shunshin** to dash away, leaving three exhausted, but elated genin in her wake.

#

Hiruzen gazed over the eight collected jōnin and tried to gauge how well this meeting was going to go. The secondary genin test had a notoriously abysmal pass rate, leaving most of the new ninja to begin their careers under the care of chūnin in the Genin Corps.

“I know it has been a tiring day for all of you, so I’ll try to make this quick. Kiyomu, let’s start with you. How did Team Three fair?”

The aged jōnin shook his head with a sigh.

“They failed quite miserably, Hokage-sama. They did not show much promise as individuals, and their teamwork was abysmal. I recommend assignment to remedial training or complete removal from the program.”

Hiruzen nodded with a grim frown, scratching out the three genin’s names under the “fail” category.

“Team Four?”

“Fail, Hokage-sama. I recommend they never be near the shinobi world ever again.” Hiruzen raised a brow at the harsh statement, but trusted his jōnin’s judgment.

“Six?”

“They show a faint glimmer of hope, Hokage-sama, but I don’t think they’re ready yet. They will do well in the Genin Corps.”

Hiruzen sighed, sensing a pattern emerging. With Kakashi’s infamous record, he almost did not want to ask about Team Seven.

“Kakashi?” The masked jōnin’s visible eye crinkled in a smile.

“They passed.”

The aged Hokage blinked in surprise. He was quick to mark the children’s names under “pass” before Kakashi could change his mind.

“How did Team Eight perform, Kurenai?”

“It was close,” the young jōnin said with a grimace. “And they have a lot to work on, but they pass.”

Hiruzen took a happy puff on his pipe as he scratched three more names in the winning column.

“Asuma?”

“They pass with flying colors,” his son answered, cigarette hanging lazily from his mouth. Hiruzen hummed his approval. They were on a role.

“Hayate? What of Team Eleven?” The sickly jōnin coughed and shook his head in the negative.

“Did we break even, Rin?”

The woman’s brown eyes shined with a warmth that had been absent the week before.

“They passed, Hokage-sama.”

Hiruzen grinned around his pipe and wrote the three’s names down. A fifty percent pass rate was much better than normal.

“Good, good. I will get this to the registration division as soon as possible.” He put the paper aside and leaned forward, resting his chin on clasped fingers. “Kakashi, Asuma, Kurenai, and Rin please stay behind. The rest of you are dismissed.”

The four jōnin bowed and made swift exits while the remaining few settled themselves in for a longer meeting.

“So,” the Hokage said once his office door closed. “What are your first impressions of your genin? Kakashi, you start.”

“Uchiha Sasuke is the strongest and most developed on the team, by far.”

“Big shock,” Asuma said with a snort. Kurenai shook her head and Kakashi rolled his visible eye. Rin just studied the silver-haired man with a frown.

“His reputation as a genius is correct, but I worry about what drives him.” Kakashi chose not to elaborate. “Yamanaka Ino and Haruno Sakura are much less advanced, and are constantly at each other’s throats.”

Hiruzen raised a questioning brow.

“But they each show promise, and they performed better when trying to outdo the other. Being on the same team as Sasuke seems to motivate them.”

“Playing them off of each other could be a dangerous game, Kakashi.”

The masked man shrugged, nonchalant. Hiruzen took that as a sign that he was already well aware of the risks. He shifted his gaze to the striking, red eyes of his newest jōnin.

“Kurenai?”

“Aburame Shino already has an impressive mastery over his clan’s techniques, but he lacks a variety of other skills to accentuate that strength. He’s a quick thinker and a budding strategist, but he’s also standoffish and slow to trust his teammates.

“Hyūga Hinata has an amazing amount of potential,” she said with a frustrated grind of her teeth. “If she ever gets out of her own head. She is hesitant, lacks self-confidence, and is too quiet to add to team discussions.” Kurenai let loose a heavy sigh. Hiruzen suspected that the girl’s apparent meek demeanor grated against Kurenai’s driven nature. “Still, she has a good foundation in the Jūken, and has a remarkable amount of chakra control for a genin.

“Shimizu Toru is the roughest of the three. He is below average in genjutsu and taijutsu, but he has a knack for using ninja tools in creative ways.” Her left hand stroked her opposite shoulder with a wince. “He _really_ likes explosions.”

“Your genin managed to hit you Kurenai?” Asuma asked with a laugh. Kurenai looked at him with narrowed eyes that had Hiruzen’s son holding up his hands in a placating manner.

“Thank you for the detailed report,” Hiruzen interrupted before they could begin arguing. “What about your genin, Asuma?”

“Shikamaru’s a closet genius, Chōji probably already has more raw strength than most chūnin, and Kiba is a loudmouth with a knack for beat down taijutsu.”

Hiruzen waited for elaboration, but his son just puffed on his cigarette with his arms resting behind his head. The aged Hokage shook his head. He only hoped that Asuma’s easygoing laziness did not rub off on his genin.

“Rin?” The med-nin sat up to attention, having drifted off into her own world.

“There’s definitely potential here, Hokage-sama. Takawa Natsuko has a surprising amount of skill with her bō staff. Though, her stamina and technique can use some improvement. She seems to have a weakness for genjutsu, and is quick to anger, but both can be improved on with time. Kofuku Ayano shows some potential as a strategist and with projectile weaponry, but is also susceptible to genjutsu. I also did not have a chance to test her taijutsu or ninjutsu, which leads me to believe that she favors neither.”

“Uzumaki Naruto is stubborn and somewhat of a loudmouth, but he has the best stamina I have ever seen in a genin. He showed some brief tactical ability and a determination to improve himself. I suspect he has a talent for using ninjutsu in unique ways, as I’ve never seen anyone use a **Kage Bunshin** in the way he does. Combined with his chakra, I think he has the potential to be an amazing ninjutsu specialist.”

The other three jōnin looked to her in surprise, likely having read the scouting report on each of the class’ genin, but Hiruzen did not give them time to question Rin.

“Good. It sounds like we should expect a lot from this year’s rookies. Now, you should all go home and get some rest. I assume you have students to teach in the morning, and I must impress just how exhausting that can be. Dismissed.”

Kurenai and Asuma wasted no time in vacating his office, but Rin stayed back. Kakashi hovered just outside the door, a concerned black eye studying his former teammate.

“Hokage-sama, I just wanted to say thank you,” Rin said, bowing her head. Hiruzen smiled and nodded, hear warming. “I think you may have been right.”

“I am glad to hear it.” The woman bowed fully, turned on her heel, and strode out of his office. She had not even paused to glance at Kakashi. The silver-haired jōnin shot him a questioning glance, but Hiruzen just shrugged and lit his freshly stuffed pipe.

It would be an interesting year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: To those reading for the first time after the edits, I hope you enjoyed! If you re-read this after the edits were made, I think you'll agree that the chapter has improved by leaps and bounds.
> 
> To check out the translations of jutsu, check out my profile. I will be linking a google doc with all relevant information.
> 
> For reference:
> 
> Team 7: Hatake Kakashi, Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, Yamanaka Ino
> 
> Team 8: Yūhi Kurenai, Aburame Shino, Hyūga Hinata, (OC) Shimizu Toru
> 
> Team 10: Sarutobi Asuma, Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chōji, Inuzuka Kiba
> 
> Team 12: Nohara Rin, Uzumaki Naruto, (OC) Kofuku Ayano, (OC) Takawa Natsuko


	3. Early Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor do I profit from this work. I'm merely using it as an exercise to improve my writing and for my own and others enjoyment. (Full author's notes at the end of chapter to avoid spoilery-ness)

* * *

**Team Rin**

**Chapter 3**

**Early Days  
**

* * *

Ayano hummed a tune as she stepped out of her room ready for her first official day of shinobi training. She tightened the strap of her kunai holster as she took the stairs two at a time. The familiar bustling sound of the rest of her family preparing the restaurant for the day reached her as she stepped onto the landing, and she tiptoed her way toward the side door. Hopefully nobody would—

"Aya-chan! Come back here and help prep for the morning rush!" Her mother called. Ayano froze in her tracks, bristling at the nickname. She grimaced and turned on her heel, giving her would-be captor her best glare. The woman, sporting her usual hostess dress with her auburn hair done up in an elaborate bun, was tapping her foot with a delicate, raised brow.

"I can't. I have training today." The older redhead's foot stopped tapping and her hands landed on her hips. Ayano braced herself for the usual scolding.

"Young lady, your father and I have put up with your childish dream for years now. We let you go to that school and play at being a ninja as long as you remembered that the restaurant always comes first. It's not often that we ask you for help," Ayano held back a snort. She had nearly failed the academy every year due to how often she was late. The amount of extra credit she had to do to pass still made her shudder in fear. "But when we do, I expect you listen to me."

"I _can't_." Ayano put as much force into the word as she could. Her mother looked taken aback. "I'm a full –fledged genin now. I can't blow off training like I used to do with school."

"You graduated?" The older woman asked, blinking in surprise. "When?"

"A couple days ago." She forced herself to ignore the pang of hurt. "I have responsibilities now."

"You have responsibilities here!" Ayano took a shuddering breath. She would _not_ lose her cool right now.

"If I ignore my training, I could wind up hurt. Or dead!" Ayano felt a guilty sense of satisfaction as her mother paled. "That's if they don't kick me out of the program first."

"D-die?" Ayano gave a grave nod. "Then it's definitely time you withdrew from the program and focused on your training here." Her mother turned to go back onto the restaurant floor. "Honestly. We all thought you'd give up before you got this far." Ayano stood there, stunned. As much as she wished it did not; her family's lack of support _hurt_. Before her saboteur could turn around to make sure she was following, Ayano bolted out of the building.

She held back the tears with a vicious snarl as she weaved through Konoha's crowded streets. She was a ninja now; she had to be _strong_.

* * *

"Morning!" Natsuko called into the kitchen, bright and chipper. Rather than the normal chorus of greetings, silence met her. She studied the abandoned room with a frown, but the smell of a freshly cooked breakfast distracted her. She bolted to the table, finding a steaming plate of breakfast pastries on top of a folded paper. She nibbled on one of her mother's pastries and scanned what turned out to be a not from her father. Her parents and brother had apparently been called out on an emergency tracking mission.

She shrugged at the note, used to her family's hectic schedule, and grabbed another pastry from the plate. If there was nobody here to talk to, there was no use sticking around. She secured her staff to her back and was out the door within minutes.

"Better early than late, I guess." She was not sure what to expect from real ninja training, but, after yesterday, she was sure it was going to be tougher than anything she had ever done before. A flutter of excitement filled her chest, and Natsuko put an extra spring in her step. Rin-sensei was so strong! She had never really seen how powerful a kunoichi could be before, and the jōnin's performance had been an eye opener. For once, Natsuko felt the desire to improve her skills, rather than just go with the flow as she normally did.

She took a breath and shut her eyes without missing a step. She reached out with her chakra and tried to feel the world around her. It was a familiar exercise now, after a year of repeated practice. Her family was made up of sensor-type ninjas, but none of them were lucky enough to be born with the talent already perfect. Natsuko bobbed and weaved through the foot traffic in the streets with an ease that had taken months to master.

For the most part, she could not get a sense of individual chakra, but she could feel that _something_ was around her. Makoto had promised that it just took practice to get more refined, and her brother never lied to her. What she did feel made her smile, though. Most of the people of Konoha gave off a warm, welcoming feeling that always made her feel at home. There was an occasional cold and dark presence, but she never managed to pinpoint who it was.

"Hey, Natsuko! Why are you walking around with your eyes closed?" She jolted to a sudden stop as a presence dropped down right in front of her. She opened her eyes to be blinded by orange.

"I was practicing my family jutsu," she said in a clipped tone. The class idiot was her teammate now, and so she would be civil. She did not have to like him, though.

"Your family has special jutsus? I didn't know you were from a clan." Natsuko rolled her eyes. The Takawas were far too small to be an official ninja clan. He would have known that; if he ever paid attention in class. Not for the first time, Natsuko wished she had been as lucky as Sakura and Ino with her team placement.

"We're not a clan, but everyone in my family is a sensor ninja." She closed her eyes and started walking toward training ground twelve.

"Cool," Naruto said as she felt him fall into step with her. "What's a sensor ninja?" He asked a few seconds later, causing her to trip over her own feet.

"Baka! Don't you know _anything_?" She snapped her eyes open to find Naruto frowning with his arms crossed, looking hurt. She sighed, feeling a pang of guilt, and ran a hand through her dark hair. "A sensor can _feel_ others' chakra. Everyone has it, even civilians, so it's really useful for finding people."

"So if I hid somewhere in the village," Naruto said, brightening back up, "You would be able to find me?"

"Well," Natsuko replied with a sheepish smile. "I'm not that good yet. But yeah, someday I'll be able to."

"Sounds really useful." Natsuko nodded and a silence fell between them as they neared the training ground. With her eyes open, she noticed that people were giving them a wide berth while casting odd looks toward the orange clad genin. She spared a glance to her teammate, but he wore a serene smile.

 _Be careful around that boy, Natsuko_ , her father's words echoed. _Nothing good will come from him_. She furrowed her brow in thought. She could not reconcile her father's warnings and the people's wariness with the blonde idiot. Something did not add up

"Hello." Natsuko turned to find her other teammate coming from a side street. Ayano waved at them with a small smile, but her eyes were pink and slightly puffy. Naruto returned an enthusiastic wave, either not noticing or not caring that she had been crying. Natsuko frowned, but chose not to comment.

"You three are early? Good!" All three of them turned to see their sensei drop down from the roofs above, arms full with scrolls. The woman gave them a kind smile. "I hope you're all eager, because your serious training starts today."

"You better believe it Sensei! I'm ready for anything!" Natsuko winced as Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs. Ayano also took a surprised step back, but Rin-sensei only ruffled Naruto's hair without losing her smile.

"Glad to hear it, come on." She waved them to follow her, and they swiftly obeyed. "This morning we'll begin with something really intense…" Natsuko shared a look with her teammates and saw eagerness in their eyes that matched her own. She had to grin.

* * *

"Thought exercises?" Naruto asked with no small amount of dismay. Rin forced down a laugh at her genins' crestfallen faces. It really was unfair of her to lead them on like that, but it was just too much fun.

"Yes Naruto, thought exercises." She sat in the grass and spread out one of the scrolls in front of her. The genin all sat in front of her and peered at the diagram on the scroll. "As a shinobi," she said, switching to her lecturing tone, "you will always have to keep your mind sharp. A ninja that doesn't use their head is a dead ninja. Worse, they get others killed." She tapped the scroll in front of her, pointing at four figures in the center.

"This is a diagram showing a possible scenario you can come across during a mission. Inside a large, well lit warehouse, three enemy ninja are holding an important hostage at kunai point. The goal of your mission is to retrieve the hostage safely at any cost." She shifted her finger to indicate three different figures on the roof of the warehouse. "These are you three."

"The warehouse itself is two stories tall, with windows lining the upper floor. There is also a hatch on the roof. The second "floor" is nothing more than a series of crisscrossing walkways. The enemy nin and hostage are in the middle of the ground floor. How do you save the hostage?" Her genin looked to her, at each other, and then studied the scroll. Rin closed her eyes and took a meditative breath. It would probably take them a few minutes to come up with a solution.

Naruto's enthusiastic voice came a second later. "That's easy, Rin-sensei." She opened her eyes and saw him grinning. "We bust in and take them out and get the hostage out of there." Rin sighed.

"The enemies kill the hostage as soon as they hear you enter the building. Mission failed, try again."

"You never said they'd do that!" The blonde accused with a pout. His teammates just shook their heads and looked back to the scroll.

"Always take into account the worst case scenario, Naruto. When a group is holding someone hostage, always think that they would rather have that person dead than to be rescued. Try again." The blonde boy huffed, but looked back to the scroll.

"A ranged attack," Ayano then said; her eyebrows furrowed over swollen eyes. Rin made a mental note to keep an eye on the girl's mentality.

"Go on." The redhead perked up at not being outright rejected.

"Well." She chewed her lip. "We'd have to sneak in unnoticed, and then each of us could take out one of the enemies with a kunai or shuriken." Rin gave the girl a small smile.

"Not the worst plan." Ayano's face brightened. "But you would have to make sure each strike takes out opponent, and at the same time. If any of the kunai miss, or take a split second longer to strike, then the hostage is dead and your mission failed. Low chance of success, try again."

Rin closed her eyes and breathed in the fresh morning air. She heard her genin start muttering to each other and grinned. They did not have to be told to work together today, which she counted as progress. The problems she set for them would not be overly difficult, but they would have to think. At least a little.

"A distraction." This time it was Natsuko who spoke. The brunette pointed to a spot just outside the warehouse. "That will get at least one of them to come investigate."

Ayano took over. "As soon as they're out the door—"

"We kick their ass!" Rin laughed as the two girls grimaced at Naruto's outburst.

"We take them out, " Ayano said with a sidelong look to Naruto. "And one of us uses the **Henge** to take their form and call for more help."

"Meanwhile, one of us would have snuck into the rafters using the roof hatch or the windows…"

"So when it's down to only one person left, someone just has to not miss with a kunai!" Naruto finished with a wide grin.

"A divide and conquer strategy, not bad." Rin smiled. "A decent chance of success. Good job!" Her genin beamed with pride, and she unraveled the next scroll.

"Next up is a guarding type mission" She held back a laugh at the near inaudible sighs from the kids. They would get used to it.

* * *

"You're relying too much on your clones!" Rin shouted as she ducked another kick from behind. One sweep of her leg behind her was followed by a series of seven bursts as shadow clones dispersed. "Come at me on your own if you want to improve." Naruto, who was already halfway through his hand seals, grimaced and charged her.

Rin frowned as the orange-clad boy came at her with wild, unrefined attacks. He did not use the academy taijutsu, but rather an unorthodox brawling style. While it was less predictable than the academy taijutsu, Rin knew that it also had a lower ceiling of skill. He was limiting himself by using a form best left to civilians.

After another wild swing, Rin decided she had seen enough. She caught his follow up kick in a tight grip and spun. Naruto yelped in surprise as he was picked up and tossed through the air; right at his resting teammates. Her other two students squawked and scrambled to get out of the way, but were too slow. Rin smirked while they tried to disentangle themselves from each other.

It was the little things that made a day fun, really.

"Good news and bad news," she said to the kids once they stopped grumbling. "Bad news. You all have a long, _long_ way to go before you'll be respectable in taijutsu." All three hung their heads at the blunt denial of their skill. "Good news is that I can see each of you has a lot of potential." She glanced to the sky and saw the sun high and center. "We'll work on it tomorrow morning, but for now go and get some lunch." She finished with a smile.

The three genin picked themselves off the ground and stretched. Rin eyed each of them with a critical gaze. Ayano was the worst off of the trio in terms of stamina, and Rin suspected she had the smallest chakra reserves. Her taijutsu was average, and did not waver from the academy style, but Rin assumed, by what she saw yesterday, that the girl was more of a ranged fighter anyway. Still, they would work on it. Natsuko had a natural grace about her with her staff, and was not much worse off when disarmed. Her style used more spins and flexibility than Rin was used to, but the jōnin thought her style was still rough.

Her eyes shifted to her third genin. "Naruto, stay back for a few minutes." The blonde boy shrugged and trudged back over to her while the girls continued on the path that would take them out of the clearing that served as their training ground.

"What's up, Rin-sensei?"

"You don't use the academy style taijutsu."

"Hm?" Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Nope."

"Why? I'm sure Umino-san would have preferred you to use it."

"It was boring." Rin gave him an incredulous look, but he was oblivious. "Besides, Mizuki-teme never cared what I fought like." Rin pressed two fingers against her forehead. Of course Mizuki would not put full effort into teaching his students. "I was always near the top in taijutsu, though!"

"Near? Who would beat you?" Rin could practically feel her opening.

"Um," Naruto tapped his chin, eyes cast upwards. "Sasuke-teme, Kiba, and Hinata sometimes…" He trailed off for a moment before getting a look of defensiveness. "But they didn't use the academy style either!"

"That's because they have their own family styles to learn." A fleeting image of Obito fighting passed through her mind. "But I can guarantee you that they each mastered the academy jutsu as well."

"So?" Naruto asked with his arms crossed. "It's not like the use it all."

"Every single fighting style can trace itself back to the basic academy forms." Naruto frowned.

"You have to master the basics before you can learn the cool stuff," Naruto muttered with a look of dawning realization. Rin raised a curious brow.

"That's right, where'd you hear that?"

"It was something Iruka-sensei told me when I had trouble controlling my chakra."

"Good advice." She placed a hand on the short boy's head and ruffled his hair. "I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong, Naruto. You just need to take a step back and get a solid foundation." He nodded beneath her hand.

"Then I can kick anyone's ass, yeah?" Rin giggled at his blunt enthusiasm.

"As long as you train hard, anything is possible." She poked his head and took the most basic form of the academy style. "Now, match my movements." Her student complied.

* * *

"So where do you want to go to eat?" Natsuko asked as she and Ayano trekked away from the wood's edge. The redhead shrugged.

"Wherever." Natsuko squinted her eyes at the girl.

"Don't you ever have an opinion about something?" The redhead looked to her and opened her mouth to say something, but hesitated. Ayano snapped her mouth shut and focused on the ground, and Natsuko bit her lip with a sudden rush of guilt. "Sorry…" She said with a sigh. "How about the curry place? I haven't eaten there before."

"No!" Natsuko breath hitched in a brief moment of fright from the quiet girl's sudden shout. The redhead closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I just…anywhere else? Please?"

"How's the barbeque, then?" Natsuko asked. She wanted to ask what the taller girl's reaction was about, but she did not know Ayano well enough to pry.

"Sure," Ayano replied with a neutral expression, calming down. Natsuko counted the fact that the girl calmed down as a small win. She figured she would have to take what she could get. They were quick in weaving through the Konoha foot traffic, and, when they were approaching the restaurant, Natsuko spotted three familiar faces.

"Ino-chan! Sakura-chan! Sasuke-kun!" She called out, grabbing Ayano's hand and rushing over to her former classmates. The three were being led by a white-haired man who wore a jōnin flak jacket and his hitai-ate at an angle to cover his left eye, with his hair set at a gravity defying upward angle towards the right.

Natsuko skidded to a halt in front of the quartet and let go of Ayano's hand. The redhead was blushing and straightening her shirt with slight frown. She shrugged and focused on her friends. Ino and Sakura were glaring at each other with raised fists, while Sasuke-kun watched with a mix of annoyance and tiredness.

"Er, guys?"

"Two of Rin's kids, hm?" The jōnin said in a lazy drawl, never taking his eye off his bright orange book. The two girls stopped glaring at each other and finally noticed Natsuko and Ayano. Their eyes lit up.

"Natsuko chan!" They both said, and Ino engulfed her into a hug. It had only been two days, but after seeing each other every day for four years, that was practically an eternity. "Finally, someone to talk to other than Billboard Brow," Ino whispered in her air. Natsuko let out an uncomfortable chuckle at that. She had no idea why the two girls seemed to hate other so much, but often _chose_ to spend most of their time together. It did not make any sense.

"As if you're any better, Ino-pig!" Just like that the two were forehead to forehead, giving each other heated glares. Natsuko rolled her eyes at the familiar antics and turned to Sasuke-kun, who had turned to gaze at the clouds. She stepped into his line of sight with a cheery grin.

"Hey Sasuke-kun! How's life as a genin? I bet you've already gotten super strong!" Sasuke looked at her with those deep, black eyes that hid so much, and frowned.

"Hn." he glancing over to his teammates. His jaw tightened and he turned away from all of them to glare at the sky. Natsuko's face fell.

"Not well, then." She muttered to herself. The boy's dismissal of her was familiar, and did not sting as much as it used to. Sasuke never opened up to _anyone_.

"How're things with your team, then?" Sakura asked. Ino was pouting with her arms crossed, which meant that Sakura had gotten the last word this time.

Natsuko shrugged. "It's not that bad. Naruto's not as annoying as I thought he would be." Sakura and Ino looked skeptical at that. "And Ayano…" Natsuko gave a start, having completely forgotten about her teammate's presence. With a guilty blush, she turned to apologize to the redhead. Natsuko's eyebrow rose in surprise when she saw Ayano and the jōnin having an intense, whispered conversation. "Ayano is odd, but nice enough," Natsuko finished, turning back to the girls.

"She was always quiet in class." Ino noted. "Kakashi-sensei seems to like her."

"Kakashi-sensei likes weird things." Sakura countered. Ino nodded in agreement. Natsuko felt a pang of guild for talking about her teammate like this.

"You guys are _so_ lucky, though!" She said, changing the subject. "What's it like being on a team with Sasuke-kun?" Instead of the over the top excitement she expected, both girls adopted a look of frustration.

"It would be a lot better if Ino-pig wasn't holding us back." The blonde scoffed, and turned on the pink haired girl with her hands on her hips.

"If _I_ wasn't holding you back?"She looked livid. "You're the reason we failed the bell test!"

Sakura's eye twitched. "You missed with your mind jutsu thing and left me wide open!" She countered.

"I missed because you're trap was in the wrong place!"

"It was not! Kakashi-sensei just fell into it from a weird angle!" Natsuko looked between each one as they argued back in forth. It was like watching an awkward tennis match.

"So now it's Sasuke-kun's fault?"

"I never said that!"

"Enough, you two." Kakashi's bored voice interrupted him. The jōnin was slouched, with his hands in his pockets. He gave off nothing but a lazy vibe. Natsuko frowned at his apparent indifference. "You can't put the blame on just one of you, it was a team effort. Understand?"

"Yes Sensei." The two girls replied, heads bowed. Kakashi smiled beneath his mask.

"Besides," he said in a jovial tone. "You all sucked!" Sakura's jaw dropped, Ino squawked, and Sasuke growled at the rebuke. "But you'll get better. Now, I have to stop at the bookstore and pick up a newest _Icha Icha_ before we start training again. You kids go on without me."

"I thought that's why you were late this morning." Sakura accused him with narrowed eyes. Kakashi shrugged and sped through a few hand seals before disappearing in a swirl of leaves. Natsuko frowned. Did all jōnin use the **Shunshin** for dramatic exits?

"We only have a half hour before we have to be back, Natsuko." Ayano's quiet voice surprised Natsuko. How had she forgotten the girl was there? Again!

"Right," she muttered. "Let's stop somewhere quick then, yeah?" The four girls set off to find a good place, with Sasuke trailing behind at a reluctant pace.

* * *

"You'll have to do better than that, Baka!"Ayano and Natsuko stood at the entrance to Training Ground Twelve with their jaws slack. There were thirty Narutos beating each other senseless under Rin-sensei's amused eye.

"You can't talk to me like that! I'm the original!"

"Oh yeah?" The other blur of orange yelled back. "No wonder you ended up dead last! The original let out a roar of rage and delivered a vicious kick to the clone's side, dispelling it in a puff of smoke.

Naruto winced in pain, clutching his side in the same spot that he had kicked the clone. "Shouldn't have hit it so hard." He grunted, and went back into the fray.

"Rin-sensei?" Ayano was more than a little confused over what was going on. After a half hour of listening to Ino and Sakura prattle on about Sasuke, her head was already starting to hurt. Seeing her other teammate doing his best to kick his own ass was enough to push it to a full blown headache.

"Oh, hello girls," the jōnin said with a bright smile. "I was just giving Naruto some tips on his taijutsu. Disperse!" The sudden shout at the end caused both Ayano and Natsuko to wince, and Naruto instantly dispelled the remainder of his clones. When the smoke cleared, he was clutching his head with a wide grimace.

"Too much at once." He whined with his eyes jammed shut.

"I did warn you," Sensei said with a sigh.  
"Why was Naruto fighting himself?" Natsuko asked, leaning on her staff. Rin-sensei and Naruto gave each other a knowing glance, and Naruto broke out a wide grin.

"We discovered that Naruto has a unique ability." Rin-sensei explained. "He's perhaps the first person that can use shadow clones without worrying about chakra exhaustion." Ayano frowned in thought. So the blonde had a lot of chakra. It was not completely unheard of.

"I can use my clones to learn stuff!" Naruto supplied with a happy shout.

"How?"

"The shadow clone is not like a normal **Bunshin** , Natsuko." Ayano gave her sensei her full attention. The jōnin was using her lecturing voice again. "They were developed as a means of gathering intelligence. When they are destroyed or dispelled, whatever they learned is transferred back to the original." Ayano's eyes widened and her heart sped up in excitement at the realization of what the shadow clones were capable of.

"You have to teach us that jutsu, Sensei!" She demanded. The possibility of speedy learning was like a dream come true. With it, she could become _strong_ , and show everyone that she could accomplish her dreams.

"Absolutely not." Rin-sensei said with a stern edge. The excitement shattered and left a deep pit of disappointment in Ayano's stomach.

"Why not? It sounds like it could make training easier!" Natsuko 's whiny objection echoed Ayano's thoughts.

"Because it is a forbidden jutsu for a reason." Rin-sense planted her hands on her hips and gave them a no-nonsense look. "It takes an incredible amount of chakra to perform in the first place, and then it cuts your chakra in _half_." Ayano wilted at that, knowing exactly what would happen if she were to try to use it. "If you do not have the reserves for it, attempting the **Kage Bunshin** would kill you."

She pointed to Naruto. "He is extremely lucky that he has unusually high chakra reserves, or he would be dead right now." Ayano gained a bit of satisfaction from seeing Naruto's face turn pale. "That being said, once I am confident you two have the reserves to pull it off, I will gladly teach you." Ayano felt a bit better at that. At least it was _something_.

"Now, to further that goal and," she pointed to Naruto. "To help you control chakra better than a three-year-old—"

"Hey!" He shouted, then pouted. Ayano could not stop herself and giggled at his expression. Natsuko's chiming laughter filled the training grounds as well.

"—we will be doing extremely important training this afternoon!" All three of them stood at full attention. "You're going to learn how to climb trees!" She said, as if it was going to be the most exciting thing in the world. Ayano slumped to the ground, deciding that Rin-sensei was evil incarnate.

"Eh? What's climbing trees have to do with training?" Naruto asked in his loud, whiny voice.

"Oh you'll find out." Rin-sensei said with a grin that sent a chill up Ayano's spine. She sighed and picked herself off the ground. At least if they got through Sensei's idea of training they could start missions. It was something to look forward to, she supposed.

* * *

"I hate these missions!" Ayano yelled in utter annoyance. Naruto looked to his teammate with a tired grin. Her normally neat hair was frizzy and flying in every direction, her clothes were torn, and she was covered in scratches. Naruto rubbed the back of his head, knowing he did not look much better.

"They aren't that bad," Natsuko countered. She was carrying a fat, purring cat and looked no worse for wear. Naruto glared at the demon beast, a cut on his leg echoing in a stinging pain. How that thing escaped its master every week, without fail, was beyond him.

"That's because you didn't _do_ anything!" Ayano had a savage glint in her eye. Naruto had long since learned to stop pushing the tall redhead's buttons when she got that look.

"I do plenty," Natsuko defended herself. She flicked her hair over a shoulder. "Besides, someone's got to look good for us." Ayano's eye twitched and Naruto looked up to the sky with his hands clasped behind his head. It looked like they were heading for another argument. They sure did that a lot.

"It's the only thing you're good for." Ayano accused with a growl. Natsuko halted to an abrupt stop, and the cat took the chance to jump free. Naruto leapt after the beast, capturing it by its tail. He clutched the cat to his chest even as it tried its best to scratch his face off. He agreed with Ayano. These D-rank missions really, _really_ , sucked.

"Want to say that again?" Natsuko asked in a sweet tone, but her knuckles were white while they gripped her staff. Naruto looked to Rin-sensei, but she just shook her head. _Let them get it out of their systems_ , she had told him. _They'll be better off for it._ Naruto did not like it, but he would follow his sensei's orders.

"You heard me," Ayano replied, not backing down. Natsuko narrowed her eyes at the girl before turning on her heal and striding towards the Hokage Tower.

"Naruto, tell our teammate that just because some people don't care what they look like, nobody should."

"Uh…" Naruto said, struggling to keep the demon in his arms.

"Naruto," Ayano said in her dry tone. "Tell _her_ that just because she doesn't want to take being a ninja seriously doesn't mean that the rest of us don't."

"I…" Naruto looked back and forth between his teammates. Honestly, how was he supposed to deal with these types of situations? It was not like he had much experience with this type of thing.

"Girls, stop putting Naruto in the middle of your arguments." Naruto breathed a sigh of relief. Sensei to the rescue!

"She started it!" They both accused at the same time. They all stopped for a moment as Natsuko and Ayano glared at each other before Rin-sensei pushed them on.

"Honestly you two," Rin-sensei said in a long-suffering tone as she pushed them along. "You've been teammates for a month now. " Naruto narrowed his eyes at his sensei. So much for staying out of it. Ayano and Natsuko both bowed their heads, and the four of them continued in silence.

They shuffled into the Hokage tower, dodging around the bustling chūnin and jōnin. It was a familiar practice after three weeks of doing missions. Naruto scoffed at the idea that the chores the Hokage kept assigning them were actual missions, but that was all the old man would offer them.

Naruto followed Rin-sensei into the familiar mission room. A long table was positioned in the center of the room, where the old man and a bunch of chūnin gave out missions and payments. Despite the squirming cat in his arms, Naruto smiled. For what it was worth, the missions to catch the demon beast paid more than the average D-rank. More money meant more food, and more food meant better training!

"Team Twelve reporting mission success, Sandaime-sama." Rin-sensei announced, standing rigid with her hands clasped behind her back. The old man looked up from his papers with a kind smile, smoke rising from his pipe. He removed the worn wood from his mouth and prepared to say something, but a loud squeal interrupted him.

"Tora! Oh you naughty kitty, come to Mommy!" Naruto felt a brief moment of pity for the cat as a rotund women snatched it from his arms. The thing howled in horror as the woman squeezed it into her ample chest. No wonder it always tried to escape. "Oh thank you kids! You always get Tora back to me, safe and sound!" The woman turned and waved to the old man. "Until next time, Sarutobi-san, Iruka-kun."

Naruto perked up at the second name, and only then noticed that the chūnin at the old man's side was the Academy teacher. The scarred man looked like he did after one of Naruto's more thorough pranks.

"It's been a pleasure, Ma'am," He said in a tone that hid any tiredness. With that, the woman giggled and slipped from the room. Her cat's yowling echoed behind her.

"Well," the old man said after a long moment. "I believe this makes thirty-eight successful D-ranks completed for Team Twelve." He glanced to Iruka-sensei, who checked a piece of paper before nodding. "An impressive record for three weeks." Naruto resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Doing two of those a day was not something he thought of as impressive.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama." Rin said, giving all three of them a _look_. They all immediately echoed her. They had been fast to learn that when Rin-sensei went into ninja-mode, you did not argue with her. Naruto was still unnerved at how fast Rin-sensei could go from happy and cheerful to cold and efficient. Even for a shinobi, that had to be weird, didn't it?

The old man had a twinkling of amusement in his eye. "The praise is well deserved. Now, what shall you take for your second mission of the day? The construction aid and office work missions available." Ayano and Natsuko groaned at hearing that, and Naruto could not help himself.

"Aw, come on Old Man! Give us a real mission, none of this babysitting and cat catching crap!" His teammates gave him the slightly awed looks he normally got whenever someone heard him talk to the old man, but Naruto could _feel_ his sensei staring into the back of his head. He did not want to risk looking at her and losing his nerve. "I mean, we've been doing things like this for a _month_! We can handle whatever you throw at us. Right Ayano? Natsuko?"

The girls glanced at each other, to their sensei, and then to floor. Iruka-sensei was shaking his head, face planted in his palm. Naruto gave them a weak glare as he felt the cold sting of betrayal settle in his stomach.

"Well, we do have a C-rank or two lying around." The old man rested his chin on laced fingers, a small smile playing on his lips. Naruto felt a spark of victorious hope.

"Hokage-sama, you can't be serious?" Iruka-sensei said in complete disbelief. Naruto set his jaw against the fact that his former sensei did not appear to believe in the skills. "They're only fresh graduates." The Hokage hummed, eyes not leaving where Rin-sensei stood.

"Thank you, Umino-san, but these are my genin now, not your students. It is up to me to decide whether or not they are ready." Naruto looked to his sensei for the first time since his outburst, a happy smile ready to break out on his face. He stopped short when he saw her though. When had she turned so pale? Rin-sensei's kind brown eyes locked onto his.

"But you're right. They are _not_ ready to go out on C-rank missions yet." Naruto deflated, knowing by Rin-sensei's tone that he would have no chance to argue further.

"I see," the old man said, shuffling through a pile of paperwork. "In that case, I think I have a D-rank in mind for you." Naruto held back a sigh, knowing it would only get him in trouble.

* * *

"I can't believe you talked to the Hokage like that." Natsuko whispered as she and her teammates followed Rin-sensei toward their mission. Naruto grumbled something she could not make out and shifted the stack of paperwork in his hands. "Now we probably won't get to go out of the village for another month. Sakura-chan and Ino-chan mentioned they were going to go out on one soon, too. Now we'll fall behind…" How could she ever have a chance to impress Sasuke-kun if her two biggest rivals outperformed her? Once again, she lamented the fact that she was not on the last Uchiha's team.

"I had to try," Naruto whined. "We don't do anything important! We're ninja, we're supposed to be saving the world and stuff!" Natsuko shook her head. Where did he come up with this stuff?

"We all have to start somewhere," Ayano said with a frown. "All the jōnin in the bingo books have done hundreds or thousands of D-ranks." Naruto groaned at that implication.

"You complain about them more than he does," Natsuko reminded the redhead. The girl just shrugged in her usual way. It was a habit that irked Natsuko to no end.

"Do you three know which way you're going?" Rin-sensei's cheerful voice interrupted them. Natsuko was relieved that whatever had made her sensei act so weird in the tower seemed to have passed.

"Yes, Rin-sensei," the three of them chorused. It was odd how quickly these habits developed over the last month, Natsuko mused. Then again, with her family still out on a mission, she had spent most of her waking hours in the company of these two.

"Once we make it to the main gate, I'll leave you three to it." The jōnin told them. Their mission was to distribute a new set of orders to the chūnin guarding the gates. It was not a vital priority, but it needed to be done. That was a pattern she had noticed with the D-ranks.

The open main gate of Konoha soon towered over them, and Natsuko could not help but stare at the sight. She had never been so close to the edge of the village before, and had no idea what to expect. The gate was at least the size of the Hokage's tower, with a bunch of intricate designs carved into the wood. The forests of Hi no Kuni sprawled out just beyond the protective barrier, making the outside world look like a sea of green.

"Afternoon, Jōnin-sempai," one of the chūnin said with a wide yawn. Natsuko raised a brow. Just two chūnin to guard the massive gate? Seemed like it should have been more. "Anything we can help you with?" Rin-sensei gave the three genin a glance, and Naruto was the first to step forward.

"The old man gave us your new orders," the blonde said, tossing a stack of papers onto the chūnin's desk. Natsuko sighed and heard Ayano palm her face. Leave it to Naruto to completely forget about formality.

"The "old man?" Is that any way to talk about the Hokage, Brat?" The sleepy chūnin chastised. Naruto gave a shrug that could rival Ayano. "Now listen here—"

"Whatever, we've got more of the _old man_ 's orders to give out." Naruto said with a wave of dismissal. The chūnin both spluttered, but Rin-sensei just shook her head. It was just another average day for Team Twelve.

"Out of the way!" Everyone snapped their attention to an ANBU operative barreling through the gate. Natsuko could make out more figures approaching a short distance away. The chūnin guards looked taken aback. Apparently they had been too distracted by Naruto "We've got injured!"

"How serious?" Rin-sensei asked in a business-like tone.

"Pretty bad, Nohara-san," the masked ANBU admitted. The panicked tone was at odds with the emotionless lion mask he wore. "They were in pursuit of an A-class escapee, and got caught unaware. Two dead, two seriously injured, and the rest are wounded." Natsuko shared a worried glance with her teammates. They all knew about the more dangerous aspects of the shinobi life, but they had not come face to face with it yet.

"Understood." Rin-sensei turned to them and gave them her best "do what I say" look. "You three are going to finish your mission and then take the afternoon off. Understood?" Natsuko was going to voice her assent when she caught sight of the person leading the group back.

"Mako-nii!" She called, running to her older brother. The boy's normal smile and confidant aura were nowhere to be found. Instead, his eyes were puffy, his arm was in a sling, and he looked exhausted. When he caught sight of her, his face fell. Natsuko felt a pit of dread settle into her stomach.

"Natsu-chan…" She felt her heart pounding against her chest hard enough to make her lose her breath.

"Wh-where are Mom and Dad?"

"They…" he trailed off, looking after the ANBU that were racing toward Konoha General Hospital with a pained expression. "It doesn't look good." The world froze for a long second and Natsuko could not catch a breath. Makoto's words just would not register.

Without thinking about it, she dropped the _stupid_ and _useless_ paperwork to the ground, and raced off after her parents. Wetness slid down her cheeks as she ran, and she barely registered her brother and team falling in step behind her. Her parents would be alright. They _had_ to be alright.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And there you have Chapter 3! This is a semi-filler chapter that is meant to show the status quo for Team Twelve, as well as their dynamic. How do you guys like Natsuko and Ayano so far? I've got a good many thoughts on their characters and where they're going to go, but I'd like to hear from the readers to see if you even like them in the first place!
> 
> Also, there will be no Wave Mission in this story. Gasp! In all honesty, I just don't think I can make it better/more original than everyone else who's ever rewritten it. Don't worry about Haku, Zabuza, and Gato though. They'll all show up at some point sooner or later.
> 
> That being said, the first C-rank "arc" will kickoff starting next chapter, and we'll finally get out of Konoha!
> 
> One more thing. I had a lot of questions on shipping and the like in reviews and PMs. A more than fair question, considering I know how a pairing can make or break stories for people. Only a couple things you need to know about that, though.
> 
> I have narrowed down who Naruto will be with to two people, but the plot won't be affected by that choice until way down the road. I can tell you that he won't be paired with any of my OCs, nor will they be paired with Sasuke. (Poor Natsuko) Also, everyone will be with someone from around their age, as the student/teacher romances tend to get a bit squicky. So, no Naruto/Rin either. (Also, NaruHina and NaruSaku are not options, as they have been thoroughly explored by other authors.) Also, no yaoi, for those curious.
> 
> Other than that, wait and see! Please review!


	4. The First Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor do I profit from this work. I'm merely using it as an exercise to improve my writing and for my own and others enjoyment. Please read and review!

****

* * *

**Team Rin**

**Chapter 04**

**The First Mission  
**

* * *

Ayano stood to the side of the hospital room, feeling helpless. Nurses and medical ninja bustled around the emergency ward, and Ayano had the distinct feeling that she and Naruto were not supposed to be there, but Rin-sensei had told them to stay put. Ayano kept her eyes locked on the two beds closest to the entrance. Rin-sensei was leaning over one, while a bearded jōnin was over the other. Their hands glowed green and sweat dripped from their brows. Ayano had never seen Rin-sensei look so focused before.

Naruto fidgeted beside her. She spared the excitable blonde a glance and saw that he looked as uncomfortable and out of place as she felt. A small sob drew her attention back to the beds. Natsuko was crying and clutching to her equally teary-eyed older brother, but her watery eyes were locked on the people unconscious on the beds. Ayano grimaced.

Ever since they became a team, Ayano had often wanted to wipe the grin off the overconfident girl's face, but seeing her look so _broken_ at that moment made Ayano feel petty and childish. Nobody deserved to watch their parents in the condition Natsuko's were in.

"I think we're in the clear here," the bearded medical ninja said in an exhausted whisper. Natsuko sobbed in relief, and Ayano saw the bedridden woman's chest rise and fall at an even pace beneath the man's hands. The redhead was _sure_ the Natsuko's mother had not been breathing when they had burst in the room.

"Then I can use your help, Iyasu-san." Rin-sensei's tone was calm, but short. Her kind brown eyes were locked onto her patient's leg. Ayano's stomach churned at the sight of the crushed limb. "The bones are completely shattered," she muttered. Iyasu spun on his heel, green aura sinking into Natsuko's father.

"There's no way we can save this," he said a moment later, eyes scrunched in effort. Rin-sensei shook her head.

"There's a chance, but…" Rin-sensei grimaced as the green aura around her hands flickered. "My chakra's starting to run low." The aura flickered again, and Rin-sensei stumbled.

"You're at your limit, Rin-sempai." Rin-sensei growled at the man's declaration. "I can handle this if we amputate. There will be much less risk, and-" Natsuko and her brother cried their protest, interrupting him.

"Naruto, get over here!" Rin-sensei's tone brooked no arguments, and Naruto raced over to their sensei. "Place your hand on the small of my back," she said, with a determined glint in her eye.

"You have to be kidding!" Iyasu argued as Naruto placed a hesitant hand on Rin-sensei's back. "He's just a genin! If you do this, we'll lose three lives instead of just one." H is face was drawn in a grim determination.

Rin-sensei grinned without humor. "Have some faith, Iyasu-san." Her hands flashed through a long series of seals. Ayano tried to keep up, but Sensei moved too fast to see each one. " **Setsuzoku no Chakra** ," the jōnin declared, and Naruto gasped. Ayano watched, slack jawed, as Naruto was enveloped in a blue aura that flowed from head and toe toward the hand touching Rin-sensei. Their sensei's hands were glowing a vibrant green once again.

"He has that much chakra?" Iyasu had stepped back and was staring at Naruto in awe. Even Natsuko and her older brother were looking at the aura in wonder. Naruto, for his part, looked both confused and a bit afraid.

"Don't be afraid, Naruto." Sensei said in her kind voice. Ayano noticed that her hands were trembling. "Just need to borrow some chakra for a bit." She took a deep breath, and placed her hands on her patient's injured leg. "I never get used to this sensation."

It was a long process, but Ayano could not tear her eyes away from Sensei's work. As her hands inched down the man's leg, it seemed as if it ballooned back to life. By the time she got to the foot, the only thing that looked wrong about the leg was tender looking skin. Ayano was speechless at the transformation. Rin-sensei was amazing!

"There," Sensei said as her hands lost their glow. Only then did Ayano notice that the medical jōnin and Naruto were both gasping for breath. "It's going to take a long, long time, but his leg is safe."

"I… can't believe that worked." Iyasu was staring at Naruto with a focus that set Ayano on edge.

"Naruto-kun has the highest chakra reserves out of any genin I've seen," Rin-sensei said with a grin, despite her shaking and gripping the bed with all her might.

"That's right!" Naruto declared through gasping breaths, holding up a hand with two fingers making a 'v' for victory. "I'm the best, datteba…" The blonde suddenly wobbled and collapsed onto his rear. "I don't feel so good."

"You've gone pale," Ayano muttered, offering him a hand up. Naruto took it with that ever-present grin of his. Much to her annoyance, he leaned most of his weight onto her once she stood him up.

"A bit of a side effect." Rin-sensei sat down on an open bed. Her entire body was still quivering. "Though, I guess I've got it worse than you." She grinned and fell back onto the bed.

"Rin-sensei!" Natsuko snapped out of her stupor and ran toward the collapsed jōnin. The short girl enveloped the downed woman into a hug. "Thank you so much!" Ayano could hear the tears in her teammate's voice. She still could not wrap her head around seeing Natsuko so _vulnerable_.

"It's nothing…Natsuko-chan." Sensei's voice was faint. "Iyasu-san, could you?"

"Right," the bald, bearded man said, finally breaking out of his stupor. "Rin-sempai will need to rest for a few days," he declared. "As will you." He pointed a stern finger at Naruto.

"Eh? What for?" Ayano narrowed her eyes at the blonde and took a step to the left. Without her support, Naruto fell forward before she stepped back and caught him again. "Oh…" Ayano grinned at his now sheepish tone.

"I guess that means it's time for us to go Natsu-chan." Natsuko's older brother's soft voice broke his silence. "Mom and Dad will be fine now." Natsuko rose from Rin-sensei's bed and nodded while wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

"I don't think so." Iyasu interrupted, the light from the setting sun glaring off his glasses. "You, Chūnin-kohai, have at least a separated shoulder." The chūnin looked to his arm in a sling almost in surprise.

"I…actually forgot." He said with a humorless chuckle. Iyasu shook his head with a sigh, but turned his attention to Ayano and Naruto. He led the blonde to an open bed, which Ayano was grateful for. The boy was heavier than he looked.

"M'not sleepy…" Naruto drawled as Iyasu lowered him onto the bed.

"Of course not," the man said in agreement, but Naruto was already passed out. "You two," he then said, turning to Ayano and Natsuko. "Should go and get some rest. There's nothing left for you to do here.

"Right…" Ayano said, and waited for Natsuko to finish hugging her brother.

"As soon as I come back tomorrow, you're going to tell me everything that happened Mako-nii."

"Yeah, yeah." The boy said in a long suffering tone, but held Natsuko tight with his good arm.

"C'mon, Natsuko." Ayano put a gentle hand on Natsuko's shoulder. She felt guilty for breaking up the moment, but Iyasu was giving them the evil eye. Natsuko disengaged from her brother with her head hung as Ayano led her away. The girl was quiet until they exited the hospital and the gold and orange light bathed them in its warm glow.

"C-can I stay at your place tonight, Ayano?" Ayano snapped her head toward her teammate at the out of the blue request. Natsuko's grey eyes were locked on the ground in front of them, and a faint blush crept on her cheeks. "I…don't really want to go to my house…" Ayano was put off by just how fragile her teammate sounded at that moment. It had to irk the girl to appear so much different than her normal self.

"It wouldn't be a problem. It'll be noisy though." Ayano warned her. With sunset came the dinner rush, and the nonstop noise that always came with it.

"I won't mind," the brunette said with a genuine smile. There was no trace of her usual haughtiness at all. Ayano felt more at ease around her teammate than she ever had before. It was funny how seeing someone so open could do that.

* * *

"So much better," Ayano said with a contented sigh. She ran her hands through her hair, enjoying the damp sensation. After a long, tiring day, there was nothing better than a hot bath. She hummed to herself and slid open the door to her room to find her teammate poking around Ayano's bookshelf with a curious eye.

"See anything you like?" Ayano said, not expecting an answer. Natsuko did not strike her as much of a reader. The brunette's finger paused on a thin book that stood out from the rest by the simple fact that the cover was neon orange. Ayano's heart skipped a beat. She had forgotten that she had put that there!

" _Icha Icha_ ," Natsuko read. She bit her lip in thought. "Sounds familiar. I swear I heard Ino and Sakura mention this before…"

"It's…it's a romance series!" She hated the heat that was rising in her cheeks. "Kakashi-sensei let me borrow it that day." To her unending relief, Natsuko did not pull the book off the shelf before she turned to Ayano, finger tapping her chin.

"That's right. You were pretty chatty with him. Hm, if he reads it too, that's probably why Sakura and Ino talked about it." Ayano let out a quiet sigh of relief. Her guilty pleasure was still a secret.

"So, what now?" Ayano asked, flopping down on her bed. Despite the long day, she was not that tired. Natsuko sat, cross-legged, on the futon they had set up and gave Ayano a serious stare. Ayano started to feel self conscious under the girl's gaze.

"Girl talk," Natsuko said, deadpan.

"Eh?"

"I just realized that we never really talked about anything not ninja-like." Natsuko explained, a slight frown gracing her features. "And after tonight, I don't really want to hear about ninja stuff."

"Oh. Right."

"Come to think of it, I haven't really talked to Naruto outside of training either, have you?" Ayano shook her head with a vague feeling of guilt. They had never done anything as a team outside of training. Natsuko hugged her knees to her chest, eyes downcast. "But you both were there today anyway…" Natsuko's eyes dulled as she lost herself in thought.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Ayano was quick to stop her teammate from going down that line of thought. Natsuko perked up and her eyes refocused.

"Hm, where to start?" Natsuko tapped her chin, eyes cast upward in thought. "I know!" Natsuko held up a finger with a mischievous grin. "Is there anyone you like?"

"Wh-what?" Ayano fought back the rush of heat to her cheeks at the sudden question. A victorious glint shined in Natsuko's eyes.

"You do like someone!" Ayano lost the battle against her blush, and faced away from her teammate. Had she figured it out? "You're embarrassed about it? Who is it, Naruto?" Ayano snorted and Natsuko giggled. Naruto was not exactly attracting girls left and right. "Is he strong?"

"They're one of the strongest, I think," Ayano muttered, her hair falling to hide her eyes.

"Then what's to be embarrassed about! Tell me who." Natsuko was leaned forward and rested her chin on Ayano's bed. The angle let them lock eyes despite Ayano's hair shield.

"What's it matter?" Ayano asked, turning away. She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling exposed.

"Well, you know I like Sasuke-kun." Ayano heard the plop that meant Natsuko fell back onto her futon. "I was just trying to make conversation."

"Why?"

"Well…because we're teammates and all…"

"Not that," Ayano said and spun to face her teammate. "Why does everyone like Sasuke? I never understood."

"Well…" Natsuko chewed her bottom lip. "He's _Sasuke_ , you know?"

"I don't." Ayano deadpanned. Natsuko furrowed her brow.

"He's just so mysterious, I guess," The petite girl said. "It makes you want to find out all about him." Natsuko cocked her head. "I mean, he's the strongest ninja in our class, and almost everybody likes him. But ever since _that_ happened,he always looks lonely." She was quiet for a moment. "I guess I can kind of understand now…"

"So you want to fix him." Ayano summarized. She had read about similar situations in her books. Jiraiya-sama used that plot a lot, actually…

"I…guess?" Natsuko flopped back onto the futon, looking a bit irritated. "I don't know. Why do I have to explain it when you won't even tell me _who_ you like?" Ayano blushed faintly.

"Er, well…" Ayano started, but a knock on her door interrupted her.

"Aya-chan, could I talk to you for a minute?" Her mother's neutral voice was muffled by the heavy door. Ayano sighed at both the nickname and her mother's tone, but hopped over Natsuko and slipped out of her room. Ever since their fight, they had been nothing but cordial to one another, but never kind.

"Who were you talking to?"

"One of my teammates, Natsuko. She asked to stay the night."

"Oh." Ayano felt a brief sting of hurt at her mother's surprised tone. "When did you plan on telling me?" The events of the day flashed through her mind, and Ayano felt a sudden rush of exhaustion. Without warning, Ayano felt herself step forward and wrap her arms around her mother. The older woman immediately responded in turn. After seeing Natsuko's parents almost die, and what that did to the brunette, Ayano's fight with her mother seemed so _stupid_.

"What brought that on?" That taller woman asked as Ayano let go

"Just felt like it," the redhead explained. She thought it best not to let Mother know that she had seen the grim reality of the ninja world. Her parents were already terrified for her as it was.

"Ah, well. Sleep well then," Mother said with small smile and stepped back toward the front door. Ayano glanced at the clock, and saw that there was still awhile left before closing. She sighed and went back to her room.

"Sorry about tha-" She stopped short when she saw Natsuko curled up, asleep and snoring quietly. She smiled at the sight, flicked off the light, and climbed over the slumbering girl to get into her own bed. As she snuggled beneath her blankets, Ayano could not help but feel hopeful for the future. She rolled over, watching her snoozing teammate for a moment.

Despite the bad things that happened during the day, they had come together as a team. With that happy thought, Ayano closed her eyes and let sleep wash over her.

* * *

"Ayano, jump! Natsuko, low right block!" Naruto shouted with sweat beading down his brow. Both his teammates reacted instantly. Ayano leapt over Rin-sensei's leg sweep and Natsuko caught the jōnin's follow up punch with braced hands. Both girls were blindfolded.

"Good!" Rin-sensei called and resumed stalking in a circle around the sightless girls. Naruto, meanwhile, was standing on one leg on the small pond in their training ground while also keeping two heavy rocks attached to his outstretched hands. His breath was heavy as he studied Rin-sensei's movements, trying to guess where she would strike next.

"Natsuko, high right! Ayano, center block!" The girls defended Rin-sensei's attacks once again, and the jōnin called the end of the exercise. Naruto breathed a sigh of relief and let the rocks fall into the pond with a solid _plop_. Over the past month this had become one of Rin-sensei's favorite things to do. They would rotate, with two people blind fighting and the other calling out orders while working on chakra control.

It was hard, but they had gotten the hang of it after the first week. Now they only ever let one of Rin-sensei's attacks through every once and awhile. Granted, the attacks were never at full speed, but that was not the point of the training.

"I'm proud of you three," Rin-sensei said, a smile on her face. Naruto grinned and slumped to the ground between his teammates. They were all sweaty messes, but they had stopped caring about things like that a long time ago. "You're finally trusting each other without hesitation."

"It's no big deal, Sensei," Naruto said, scratching the back of his head. Not listening to Natsuko or Ayano during the blind fights usually meant getting punched in the face. It did not take long to learn.

"It is a big deal," Sensei countered. "And that's why I've brought you three a couple of gifts." All three of them perked up at the mention of gifts. Rin-sensei reached into her flak jacket and pulled out…paper?

"Eh? You're giving us paper?"

"Is that chakra paper?" Natsuko asked, wide-eyed. Rin-sensei nodded and handed each of them a small square. Naruto flipped the blank sheet over, wondering what was so special about it.

"I thought that only chūnin or above learned elemental manipulation?" Naruto blinked, feeling lost. He _hated_ when he was left out of the loop.

"That's true," Rin-sensei said. "And it _is_ probably too early for you to learn how to create elemental chakra." Ayano opened her mouth to say something but Sensei held up a finger. "But this will tell me what jutsu you will have an easier time learning. Naruto looked at the square with a newfound respect. If it would tell Rin-sensei to finally teach them an actual ninjutsu, he was all for it.

"Now, all you do is put the paper between your thumb and forefinger." She held up her own piece to show them. "And channel some chakra into the paper like your chakra control exercises." Sensei's paper burst into flame for a second before dying out and leaving a pile of ashes. "However it reacts is your chakra affinity. I have a fire affinity, so I can learn those jutsus more easily than others. They'll also be more powerful, but that's only once you've mastered the element itself. Understand?" Naruto bobbed his head along with his teammates. He stared at the paper in his hand, wondering what kickass element he was.

"Ayano, why don't you go first?" The redhead nodded and focused her eyes on the paper. A few seconds later, her paper caught on fire just like Sensei's had. "Ah. A fire affinity like me!" Sensei said with bright smile. Ayano grinned and blushed.

"Me next!" Natsuko said with a cheery smile. Naruto pouted. Why did he have to wait until last? After a few beats of silence, Natsuko's paper crumbled into dust.

"Earth, hm. Not all that uncommon in Konoha, and deathly useful." Sensei said with a faraway look in her eye. Natsuko looked please as she shook away the paper dust. "Go on Naruto."

Naruto grinned and focused on pushing his chakra into the paper. He held his breath in anticipation until; finally, the paper reacted by splitting into two pieces. He frowned for a second when it did not catch fire and looked to Sensei for an explanation. She looked startled.

"I didn't really expect you'd have a wind affinity, Naruto," Sensei said. Her eyes glazed over as if she were seeing something from a long time ago.

"Wind? Why couldn't I get fire or something cool?"

"Wind is really strong, Naruto," Ayano said with a sigh. Naruto perked up and grinned at his teammate with a hopeful look.

"Really?" He was still a bit skeptical.

"Just think hurricanes or tornadoes," Natsuko chimed in. Naruto let that sink in for a bit before grinning. He had _not_ thought of that.

"This is going to be fun," he said. Natsuko and Ayano shot each other a worried glance and Naruto's grin widened.

"Anyway," Sensei said, returning to the present. She reached into one of her flak jacket's many pockets and pulled out a scroll. She unrolled it on the ground and slapped a hand on it with the other forming half of the ram seal. " **Kai**." There was a puff of smoke, and when it cleared, a small pyramid of scrolls was sitting there.

"How'd you do that?" Naruto asked, wide-eyed.

"Hm?" Rin-sensei muttered, fingering through the scrolls. "It's a sealing scroll. It stores things." She picked out three of the scrolls before making the half ram seal again. " **Fūin.** " There was another puff of smoke, and this time the scrolls disappeared.

"That seems really useful," Ayano said.

"It is. I'll teach you guys the basics of it at some point." She stood and stretched, and the three of them did the same. "In the meantime, I want you three to study one of these tonight." She handed each of them a scroll. Naruto's was fastened with a label that held the kanji for "wind" as well as the letter "C." Naruto grinned when he realized it was a jutsu scroll.

"Remember to _only_ read it tonight." She gave them her stern gaze and they all nodded their understanding. "You'll have plenty of time to practice on the road starting tomorrow."

A brief moment ticked by in silence, and then her words clicked in Naruto's head. "The road?" He asked, a mixture of excitement and hope pooling in his belly. Sensei nodded with a grin.

"The second surprise was that I picked out our first C-rank mission this morning. We leave at eight o'clock tomorrow." Naruto shared a thrilled look with both his teammates. "So go get yourselves a good meal and a good night's rest."

"You aren't coming with us tonight?" Ayano asked with a slight hesitation. Ever since the hospital incident, all of them had been spending much more time together as a team.

Sensei patted Ayano's head. "Not tonight kids. I have to take care of a couple things." She smiled and waved. "See you bright and early?" A second later she was gone, leaving only a whirl of leaves behind.

"She really has to teach us that," Naruto complained, crossing his arms behind his head. He started towards the exit path.

"She will eventually," Natsuko said as the two girls fell in step beside him. "So where do you two want to go eat?" Naruto opened his mouth to reply, but Natsuko smacked a hand over it. "And _not_ Ichiraku's! Sensei said to get a _good_ meal." Naruto narrowed his eyes and poked out his tongue. Natsuko immediately recoiled with an "Eww!"

"Ramen is a good meal." Naruto did not know why the three of them kept having this argument. More often than not they ended up eating at his favorite ramen stand anyway.

"I could actually go for some, for once." Ayano chimed in. Naruto shot her a winning grin and Natsuko hung her head in defeat.

"Fine," Natsuko huffed. Ayano gave the shorter girl a light shove.

"Quit pouting." She deadpanned.

"You never let me have any fun, Aya-chan." Ayano twitched at the nickname and gave Natsuko an incredulous glance.

"Pouting is fun?" The brunette hummed and shrugged, reaching into one of her pouches and pulling out the scroll Sensei had given her.

"Doton nebari no numa," she read, narrowing her eyes at the paper. "Supplementary? I thought Sensei was going to give us cool techniques." She harrumphed and stuffed the scroll back into one of her pouches.

"Maybe Sense knew weren't awesome enough for a real jutsu," Naruto teased. Natsuko flicked her hair and turned her nose up at him.

"Like you're that far ahead of me, Naruto-baka." Naruto grinned, knowing there was no actual anger behind her words.

"Katon, gōkyakyū no jutsu," Ayano spoke and glancing through her scroll. She grinned. "Offensive!"

"See, even Ayano gets an offensive technique!"

"That's because she's Sensei's favorite," Natsuko declared. Ayano blushed and denied her. Naruto tuned the two out and opened up his scroll, eyes locking onto the rank and classification.

"Eh? Supplementary?" Naruto's face fell. The two girls stopped their bickering to read the scroll over his shoulder.

"Fūton, daitoppa? You don't even use ranged weapons that much." Naruto sulked at Ayano's correct observation.

"You do, though." Natsuko noted, poking Ayano. The redhead swatted the girl's hand away.

"Guess Sensei planned for us to work together, then."

"Like always." The three nodded to each other, and the smell of freshly cooked ramen soon wafted into Naruto's nose.

"Let's go!" He grabbed the two girls' hands and dragged them along behind him, ignoring their squealing protests.

* * *

Natsuko jogged along the rooftops at a steady pace, enjoying the feel of the soothing morning wind against her skin. Her overstuffed backpack slowed her down some, but it was well worth it to be prepared. _An unprepared ninja is a dead ninja,_ Sensei's voice echoed. Natsuko adjusted the heavy bag with a small yawn.

In the streets below, the people of Konoha were just starting to rise and begin their day, but Natsuko had been up for hours already. She was far too anxious about going on her first real mission to get any sort of restful sleep. After what happened to her parents, she was well aware of what could happen on missions. Despite everything, her family had seen her off with smiles and words of encouragement. Her father, supporting himself with a cane, had given her his full confidence.

"The first C-rank mission is a milestone in a young kunoichi's life," he had told her in his deep, soothing voice. "I'm sure you'll make us proud Na-chan." A gentle smile crossed her features. Nothing ever seemed to get him down.

"Morning Natsuko!" Natsuko almost tripped at the sudden voice. She narrowed her eyes at the blonde in front of her, who only grinned back to her in his usual mischievous way.

"You surprised me." She accused, chiding herself for not paying attention to her senses. Naruto shrugged, hands in his pockets as he ran just ahead of her and kept staring at her. _Wait_ …

"Why are you running backwards?" The blonde was keeping pace with her and jumping all the bumps and gaps with apparent ease.

"You're going too slow." Her jaw went slack at his brash answer.

" _You_ try lugging this thing around!" She shouted, jerking a thumb at her backpack. Naruto only pointed to his own stuffed pack.

"Showoff," she grumbled. Naruto laughed and rubbed the back of his head. Natsuko rolled her eyes and pushed some more chakra into her feet, jetting past the blonde. Naruto yelped and raced to catch up with her. Natsuko shared a smile with her teammate.

At some point during their time as teammates, Natsuko had started to consider the blonde a friend. It helped that he had proven that he was actually serious about his goal of becoming Hokage by going lights out in training every day.

The main gate of Konoha soon loomed over the duo, and they found that Ayano was already waiting next to the watch station, and she was not alone.

"Yo!" The silver-haired jōnin said with a cheery wave. Natsuko and Naruto gave each other a confused glance.

"Er, Kakashi-sensei? Where's Rin-Sensei?" Naruto asked.

"Oh, I'm sure she's on her way," the jōnin sensei replied, eyes returning to his book. He flipped a page and offered nothing more. The three genin shrugged at each other and resigned themselves to wait for their sensei.

"Sorry to keep you all waiting!" Their sensei's voice echoed from around the corner a few minutes later. "I had to meet with the client, and he had some last minute…" She trailed off as she turned the corner and caught sight of Kakashi-sensei. A dark haired man trailed behind her, looking anxious.

"What are you doing here?" Sensei asked with some heat in her voice. The man behind her flinched while Kakashi-sensei shrugged with an air of indifference,

"I just happened to see a black cat and had to go the long way around," he explained, snapping his book shut. "I ran into Ayano-chan here and figured I'd wait to see you off." His eye closed in a smile while Sensei's narrowed. Natsuko glanced to her teammates, but they looked just as lost as she felt.

Sensei spun away from Kakashi and looked to the three of them. "Anyway. Naruto, Natsuko, Ayano, this is Motoike Atsuo. We'll be escorting him to Takigakure, the village hidden in the waterfall." The man behind Sensei fidgeted and bowed to them.

"Pleased to meet you!" He said in a bright tone. He wore a chūnin vest and a Konoha hitai-ate, but did not look the part of a typical ninja. He had short, well tamed black hair and a thin face with a long nose. He did not hold himself with any sort of confidence.

"Motoike-san is part of the International Relations Department," Rin-sensei explained. "We're going to be his guard while he tries to get Taki to agree to send genin teams to the upcoming chūnin exams."

"It shouldn't be too difficult," Atsuo spoke up, smiling. His voice was soft and almost hesitant. "Taki has always had a good relationship with Konoha."

"Even so," Kakashi interrupted, placing a hand on Atsuo's shoulder. The chūnin started in fright. Natsuko looked on, incredulous. This was a Konoha ninja? "You never know what to expect. My team and I just returned from Kusagakure, and they almost didn't agree to send teams."

"What? Sasuke-teme already finished his first C-rank mission?" Naruto shouted in his brash voice.

"It was our third, actually," Kakashi noted, tapping the first three fingers on his left hand.

"No way!" The blonde yelled. Kakashi shrugged, his eye still closed in a grin. Naruto scrubbed at his head in frustration. Natsuko looked on with a raised brow. Did he care that much about keeping up with Sasuke? "Come on guys!" He said, a determined fire glinting in his blue eyes.

"Naruto, it's not a-"Ayano was cut off as the blonde grabbed both her and Natsuko and started to run. Natsuko fought to keep her balance as Naruto dragged them forward.

"We have to wait for the client, Naruto!" She shouted at the blonde, who came to a sudden stop. Both her and Ayano stumbled, barely keeping their feet. "Honesty," she muttered, straightening her jacket. Naruto gave them a sheepish grin.

"You four go on ahead," Rin-sensei said with a half smile. She _would_ be entertained by Naruto's antics. Natsuko gave a half-hearted sigh. "I'll catch up in a minute."

"Come on then, Motoike-san," Ayano said, taking the lead. "Naruto will take point while Natsuko and I will guard the flanks." The redhead glanced to them, and they nodded their agreement. The chūnin nodded his understanding and took his position a couple steps behind Naruto. Natsuko stepped to a spot a step behind Atsuo, just to the left, and Ayano did the same to the right.

Behind them, Rin-sensei rounded on Kakashi and glared at him. The silver haired jōnin only looked back at her with a neutral expression in his uncovered eye.

"Set a quick pace for the first mile or two. I'll catch up," Sensei said without taking her eyes off her fellow jōnin.

"Let's go!" Naruto shouted and took off with chakra enhanced speed. "The world better be ready for Team Naruto!"

"Team Naruto?" Ayano asked with a scoff as the four of them settled into a comfortable pace jumping from branch to branch.

"If anything, we're Team Rin," Natsuko said with a roll of her eyes. Naruto deflated a bit, but was soon smiling again.

"Either way, we still kick ass!" Natsuko could not help but to grin at Naruto's enthusiasm. Even Ayano was smiling at the blonde's antics.

"You sure are confident," Atsuo spoke up for the first time. "You must be pretty strong." Naruto gave thumbs up.

"You bet! After Rin-sensei's training, we're probably the strongest genin in all of Konoha." Natsuko shook her head at Naruto's confidence.

"I wouldn't go that far, Naruto," she said.

"Why not?" The blonde asked, sulking.

"There are people who've been genin for years, Naruto." Ayano said in her patient voice. Natsuko wondered how she always seemed to be so composed. "We've only been training for a couple months."

"So?" Naruto countered. "I bet we could take on any of those teams and win!" Ayano sighed and looked to their client.

"You're a chūnin, Motoike-san. Tell him how much time it takes to become one." The chūnin looked startled and waved his hands with a sheepish grin.

"Oh, I can't really say anything!" He said with an awkward chuckle. "I was only promoted because I have a knack for politics. I'm not very strong myself." Ayano harrumphed in annoyance.

"Ayano's right, Naruto." The redhead gave her a grateful glance. Natsuko smiled at her. "It took Makoto-nii two years before he got promoted."

"Oh, you have shinobi in your family Natsuko-chan?" Natsuko raised an eyebrow at the honorific, but decided not to question the client.

"Everyone in my family is a shinobi." She informed him with only a slight hesitation. Really, her father was _technically_ still active.

"That's great!" The chūnin said with a kind smile. "I'm the first ninja from mine. I bet you get to hear all sorts of exciting stories from them, yeah?"

"Well," Natsuko said. "Usually there isn't a lot to talk about." She crossed her arms and looked to the sky in thought. "We're all sensors, so they're all only called out on tracking missions, usually."

"Oh, sensors?" Atsuo asked, looking intrigued. "That's a rare ability!" Natsuko hummed in agreement. A moment later, something looked to click in the man's mind. "Were they part of the tracking team for the escape a month back?" Natsuko's heart sped up at the memory of her parents in critical condition and her teammates looked at her with worry etched in their faces.

She waved them off with a deep breath. "They were," she said in an even voice. "They each were a head of their own team, but…" She grimaced. "They were overpowered," she finished quietly.

"So the nuke-nin got away?" Their client summarized. Natsuko nodded. "What was his name?"

"What?" Natsuko asked.

"I'm not all that strong, but I do know a lot," Atsuo said, serous. "I may know something that will put you at ease." Natsuko furrowed her brow, frowning.

"Er, I don't think-" Naruto started with a glance back, but Natsuko interrupted.

"Korutoku Satoshi." Atsuo's eyes glazed over in thought. "Dad said that he had the most sinister chakra he'd ever felt."

"I'm sorry, Natsuko-chan," the chūnin said after a few moments of tense silence. "I don't think I've ever heard of him before."

"It's alright," she said with a sigh. It was not like she would be able to do anything about it anyway…

"Anyway…" Ayano spoke after a moment. "What exactly is it you're going to be doing at Taki, Motoike-san?"

"Well, like your sensei said before…" The chūnin gave Ayano an admonishing glance. Natsuko gave the girl a grateful look, knowing the redhead was just changing the subject. She received a slight nod in return. "I'll be assuring Takigakure's participation in the chūnin exams."

"Why wouldn't they?" Naruto asked. "Aren't they our allies?"

"Yes, but…" A sudden rustling of the trees put them all on edge. Natsuko's hands twitched towards her staff as her heart tripled its pace and a light panic overcame her. Both Ayano and Naruto had pulled kunai and were scanning the surrounding foliage with keen eyes.

"Down!" Naruto barked, his joyful demeanor gone as he grabbed Atsuo and dragged him down. Natsuko and Ayano did not hesitate to follow the order, and dropped from the treetops to the ground below. As soon as they landed the three of them formed a protective triangle around Atsuo, weapons at the ready.

Natsuko scanned the thick forest around her, but could not pinpoint the source of the rustling. She felt Atsuo trembling behind her back, which did nothing to put her at ease. A whistling in the air caught her attention, and her staff was moving before she fully registered the shuriken flying at her.

"South," she told her teammates, voice no more than a hiss. The metal projectiles all bounce off her swinging staff to fall the ground, harmless. Ayano and Naruto threw a volley of kunai and shuriken in response, and a figure blurred out of the bush to avoid the weapons. The enemy landed in front of Natsuko and turned to face them. All three of them cried out in shock when they recognized their sensei's face.

"Good job!" She said with a half smile. Natsuko glared at the woman, a hand holding her chest above her fluttering heart, and tried to slow her breathing.

"What the hell, Sensei?" Naruto questioned, angry. "We could have killed you!" Rin-sensei placed her hands on her hips.

"You definitely tried," she said, deadpan. Naruto grumbled, stuffing his weapon back into its pouch.

"That wasn't funny, Sensei," Ayano said, breathless. Natsuko was glad she was not the only one to have panicked, even if only a little.

"No, it wasn't." Their sensei agreed, turning serious. "It was a perfect opportunity to test your reaction time, though. You three did well." Natsuko glanced at her teammates, sharing a proud smile. A sniffle drew her attention, and she found their client rubbing at his eyes with his arm.

"Er, Motoike-san… Are you okay?" Naruto asked, looking as uncomfortable as Natsuko felt. The chūnin waved him off with a slight smile, but Natsuko could see the puffiness in his eyes.

"I'm just fine, Naruto-kun." The man's voice was shaky. "Now I know for sure I've got capable protectors!"

Sensei laid a reassuring hand on the man's shoulder. "Sorry for startling you, Motoike-san. Rest assured that you are perfectly safe in my genins' and my hands."

"Oh, I know, I know! It was just sudden is all."

"Right, well…" An awkward silence fell on them while Sensei looked through the canopy toward the sun. "It's just about noontime, so we can take a bit of a break." Atsuo nodded and said down on a nearby rock. He was _still_ trembling.

"Are we _sure_ he's a chūnin?" Naruto whispered to her, but Natsuko just shrugged and plopped down to the ground to rest.

"So what did you and Kakashi-sensei talk about, Sensei?" Ayano asked a moment later. Natsuko listened with a curious ear, having almost forgotten about their eventful exit from the village.

"It was nothing for you three to worry about," the jōnin said, looking off into the distance. Her voice was harder than normal. "Do you three have the scrolls I gave you last night?" The three of them hastened to pull out the documents. "Good, start practicing the hand seals." She instructed. "But _don't_ put any chakra into them yet." She gave Naruto a significant look, and he pouted at the unspoken accusation. "You'll need to save your energy."

Natsuko looked to Ayano and Naruto, but if they had noticed their sensei's unusual impatience, they did not show it. With a quiet sigh she unraveled her scroll, hands automatically forming seals as she read.

It was going to be a long mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So there's Chapter 4! Some team bonding and the beginning of Team Twelve's first C-rank! I know this chapter leaned pretty heavily on Natsuko and Ayano, but I felt I had to finish establishing the beginning of their character arcs. Next couple chapters will be much more Naruto based with some Rin POV mixed in for good measure, I promise.
> 
> That said, do you still like the two OC's, or are they getting on your nerves? I'm doing my best to make them believable, but I've never been a teenage girl, so any feedback is really helpful!
> 
> So what lies in store for Team Twelve as the move onwards toward Takigakure? Will the talks go smoothly, or will something interesting happen? Find out next time!
> 
> Please review! They help bring joy on even the darkest of days!
> 
> Jutsu Glossary:
> 
> Setsuzoku no Chakra (Chakra Connection)  
> A-rank – Medical Jutsu  
> User connects one person's chakra network to their own, turning one into a literal chakra battery to boost a ninja's reserves. The technique is extremely draining to both parties, and can lead to death if not controlled perfectly.
> 
> Doton: Nebari no Numa (Earth Release: Sticky Swamp)  
> C-Rank – Ninjutsu – Short Range Supplementary  
> User funnels their chakra in the ground around them, turning the land into a boggy swamp that will immobilize opponents. A sufficiently strong opponent can break away from the clinging earth.
> 
> Katon: Gōkyakyū no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique)  
> C-Rank – Ninjutsu – Short/Mid Range Offensive  
> User converts their chakra to fire and releases it from their mouth as a large burning orb capable of burning through anything in its path.
> 
> Fūton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough)  
> C-Rank – Ninjutsu – Mid/Long Range Supplementary  
> User creates a large, powerful gust of wind capable of leveling anything in its path.


	5. Something Rotten in the State of Taki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor do I profit from this work. I'm merely using it as an exercise to improve my writing and for my own and others enjoyment.
> 
> A/N: As promised, this one is much more Naruto heavy than the last few! Please enjoy!

  


* * *

**Team Rin**

**Chapter 5**

**Something Rotten in the State of Taki**

* * *

" **Fūton: Daitoppa!** " Naruto shouted, hands flashing through the now familiar seals. He released a gale of breath the ripped forward, bending the forest in front of him. Naruto grinned at his handiwork, figuring he could call the technique mastered.

"Damn it Naruto!" An angry shout sounded behind him. Naruto flinched and turned, finding Ayano glaring at him with a bunch of scrolls scattered about. They had been laid out neatly moments before. "Just because you're facing the other way doesn't mean the wind doesn't reach us." Naruto rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish grin.

"Sorry Ayano! I think I've got this down now, anyway." The redhead huffed and gathered the fallen scrolls while muttering something. Naruto figured he was better off not knowing exactly what she was saying.

"She's just mad she can't practice hers in the forest," Natsuko's teasing voice came from just beyond camp. Naruto looked toward the girl and had to stifle a laugh at her appearance. The normally impeccably dressed girl was caked in mud. Despite the mess, she was wearing a bright smile.

"I'll let you know that Rin-sensei's scrolls are _very_ interesting," Ayano said in a huff. "But I can't read them if somebody's making a maelstrom every two seconds!"

"You have an excitable bunch, Nohara-san," Atsuo said with a hesitant smile from his place next to their fire. Naruto lips twitched downward. He did not know what to make of their client. He was supposed to be a ninja, yet he was scared of his own shadow.

"That's putting it lightly," Rin-sensei replied with a roll of her brown orbs. "Give it a rest, you three, we'll reach the border of Takigakure by noon tomorrow, and I'll need you three with plenty of energy."

"What for? Nothing's happened at all!" Naruto complained, sitting on the ground with a dull thud. The mission had been so _boring._ Leaving the village was supposed to be exciting, but ever since Rin-sensei tested them on the first day, they had done nothing but run across Hi no Kuni and Taki no Kuni. The endless sea of trees quickly lost its novelty.

"Because you need to be ready for anything," Rin-sensei said, switching to her stern voice. "An unprepared ninja is—"

"A dead ninja," he, Ayano, and Natsuko all interrupted with practiced timing.

"Right," Sensei said with a bemused grin. She looked up to the sky with a calculating gaze. "The sun will set soon," she noted. "Naruto, if you're so bored, why not go get us some more firewood?"

"Sure thing, Sensei!" He said, raising his hands to form a familiar seal.

"No clones." Naruto's hands dropped and he groaned. What good was having the shadow clones if your sensei did not let you use them? Still, at least it was something. He stood and raced to the edge of their small clearing.

"I'll be back before you know it!" He called with a wave, and ran into the shadowed woods. It was not fighting bandits or saving princesses, but at least gathering firewood gave him _something_ to do.

Besides, Rin-sensei did not say that he had to get the firewood right away.

Naruto stopped running only when he was a good half a kilometer away from camp. The forest was alive with the sounds of cicadas and birds singing their twilight song. The combination reminded Naruto of home and filled him with a sense of a familiar comfort.

It would almost be a shame to interrupt that melody.

His hands raced through the seals and he took a deep breath. This time he would put some power behind it. " **Fūton: Daitoppa!** " His cry echoed around the woods, accompanied by the sudden rush of a furious wind. The gale whipped out in front of him in a wide arc, lashing and bending the trees in his path.

When his breath ran out fifteen seconds later, Naruto bent forward, taking deep breaths with his hands on his knees. The woods were now dead silent save for the crack or thud of falling debris. He raised his head and grinned when he saw his handiwork. For at least a dozen meters ahead of him, trees were either bent at an unnatural angle or broken completely. Naruto grinned; now he had two kickass techniques mastered!

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing to my forest?!" Naruto tensed up and turned to find a caramel-skinned girl, who looked to be about his age, glaring at him, hands planted on her hips. She wore a long, baggy white tank top that fell to her thighs over a pair of black shorts. A mint green t-shirt stood out beneath the tank top and matched her hair and her belt, which held a hitai-ate with the symbol for Takigakure.

What stood out to Naruto, though, were her vibrant orange eyes that glared at him with a fiery anger. He took a step back when the girl started to leak killing intent.

"Er, practicing?" He explained, running a hand through his hair. The girl's eyes flicked from him, to the path of destruction he had caused, and back. Her gaze only intensified.

"Practicing," she said, deadpan. "Do you always _practice_ where you damn well please?" She advanced on him and Naruto backpedaled until he backed into a tree. "You almost destroyed my home!" She shouted as she reached him, poking him in the chest.

"Sorry!" Naruto held up his hands in a placating gesture. Her eyes narrowed for a moment before she pushed him and spun away from him with a harrumph. She looked over the ruined path of trees with a slow shake of her head.

"What a mess…" She cocked her head to the side for a few moments before shaking it. "No…I don't think he meant any real harm." She threw him a scrutinizing look over her shoulder. "What're doing out here anyway?"

"Er, I was supposed to be getting firewood, actually." Naruto looked around the clearing as if some wood would magically appear.

"I guess you have plenty now." The girl deadpanned.

"Eh?" Naruto asked, and the Taki girl pointed behind her toward the destroyed trees.

"I guess so, heh." He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. The girl sighed and shook her head.

"Just get what you need and go," she said, walking out of the clearing. Naruto shrugged at the girl's defensive behavior and gathered up an armful of wood. He made to go back to camp, only to realize he had no idea what direction to go in.

"Crap." The sun had set and the dark forest looked the same in every direction. Naruto stepped from foot to foot, deciding whether or not to send out clones when he heard the soft footfalls of the Taki girl as she retreated through the woods. He set off after her without another thought.

"Hey! Wait up!" He called after her. The sound of her footsteps stopped, and the orange eyed girl soon came into view.

"What is it?"

"Well, uh…" Naruto felt his cheeks heat up and scratched at one in idle habit. "I'm kind of lost." She looked incredulous.

"You're lost? You are a ninja, right?" Naruto glared at her sarcastic tone.

"Of course I am, dattebayo! You distracted me when I was practicing and I lost my way."

"You're kind of an idiot, aren't you?" Naruto harrumphed and spun on his heels, an annoyed anger rising in his chest.

"Whatever, I'll find my way back on my own!" He would just have to find the traces of the path he made through the trees; in the darkness. He bit back a sigh.

"Wait, wait!" The girl yelled to him. Naruto stopped and turned, finding the girl was rubbing her temples with a pained expression. "If you don't know where to go, you'll probably end up dying in these woods." As if on cue, a distant grumbling roar echoed through the trees. Naruto gulped.

"My team will start to look for me eventually." He said, more to assure himself than his new companion. Natsuko had gotten good enough to sense people, he thought.

"Well…I guess I can just leave you out on your own then." She started to walk away again.

"H-hey! Wait a minute!" She stopped again and turned. This time her lips were quirked in a small smile. Naruto realized he had been had. "Not funny…"

"My place isn't far," she said, beckoning him to follow her and he fell into step beside her. "Just…don't expect much." Naruto thought back to his own rundown apartment. Anything would be an upgrade from that.

"I'll just be glad to not be waiting alone," he said with a short chuckle. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Well, we're friends now, right?" The girl did not reply right away. Instead she looked toward the sky, eyes glowing in the moonlight.

"Friends…" Naruto frowned at her hesitant tone.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto," he said to distract her. "Future Hokage of Konoha, dattebayo!" Her orange eyes met his.

"Why?"

"Eh?"

"Why do you want to be Hokage?"

"So everyone in Konoha will acknowledge me." The practiced answer slipped out without even thinking about it. The green-haired girl snorted.

"That's stupid." Naruto squawked at the blunt reply. "Why would you care if people acknowledged you?" Naruto flashed back over the last two months of his life, and felt comfort and pride in the memories of being accepted by his sensei and teammates.

"Because it's an awesome feeling," he explained. The girl's gaze lingered on him for a moment before she shrugged and nodded toward the path in front of her. Naruto followed her gaze to see a grove of trees flanking a high, greenery-covered mound that was taller than Rin-sensei and at least seven meters across.

What drew his attention, though, was the large, circular door and windows that were built into mound. A trail of smoked drifted lazily toward the sky, and Naruto could see the glow of a fire through the windows. He approached it and placed a hand along the side, eyes wide. There was wood beneath the plant life.

"Fū," the girl said after a long moment of silence. Naruto tore his eyes away from the building and studied the girl, who appeared somewhat tense. "My name is Fū. This is my home."

"It's awesome! How'd you build it?"

"With a lot of work," she said with a soft smile. "And the help of a lot of friends." Naruto's eyebrows shot up in surprise as Fū pushed open the portal and stepped through. Did she just say that she did not care about anyone's acknowledgement? Everybody has their secrets. One of Rin-sensei's many lessons flitted through his mind and Naruto sighed. He would have to keep his guard up.

He followed Fū through the door and into the comforting warmth of her shelter. A fire was crackling in a small pit built into the ground in the center of the room. The flickering flames illuminated the entire home, showing it to be barely furnished. A small bed was flush against the far end of circle with a rickety-looking nightstand that held nothing but a burning candle. Fū had sat at a table and chair that looked as well used as the nightstand, and was idly sharpening a kunai.

Other than that, there was nothing else there.

Fū was focused on her kunai, so Naruto sat by the fire with a dull thump, kicking up some dirt from the uncovered floor. "So, why do you live all the way out here?" The sound of the whetstone grinding against the kunai came to a sudden halt.

"I prefer being alone." The answer was hesitant, and she offered nothing more. The sound of metal against stone sounded once more. Naruto felt confused at the girl's contradicting answers.

"I thought you said a lot of friends helped you? Someone with a lot of friends wouldn't want to be alone all the time." _Or want to be acknowledged_ , he added to himself. Silence, broken only by the fire's crackle, reigned in the small home. Naruto eyed a pair of beetles that had crawled over his leg. He blinked in surprise when they stood up on their hind legs and moved their front legs in a circle. It was almost like they were _waving._

He looked toward Fū to see if she was seeing this, and found her eyes closed and hands formed into a seal. She dropped the seal and the beetles immediately scurried away from Naruto. Fū opened her eyes with a calming breath, a hint of hesitation in their orange depths.

"I can control bugs," she explained. "I used them to help build this place."

"Oh. Must have been a lot of them." Fū hummed in agreement and returned to her kunai. Naruto was at a loss for words, feeling an empathetic sadness for the green haired girl. She had to be lonely if she considered _bugs_ to be friends. "So, er, what do you do for fun?"

She ran a hand through her hair, tugging lightly on the mint green locks with a sigh. "You really like to talk, don't you?" Before Naruto could defend himself, a rustling outside drew his attention. Fū snatched up her kunai into a ready hold and squinted out the window. Naruto blinked at her quick reaction, but focused his attention on listening to the outside world.

"In there, Sensei!" Naruto grinned at Natsuko's triumphant shout. Fū had tensed up and inched toward the door, crouching into an ambush position.

"Hey, don't worry!" Naruto said to her before she skewered somebody. "That was one of my teammates." Fū frowned, but put away her kunai anyway. She stood, holding herself rigid. "Relax," he told her with a reassuring smile. She did not.

Atsuo's head appeared in a nearby window, eyes flickering across the room with a mixture of fear and nervousness. Naruto gave him a cheerful wave when the man spotted him, and recognition flashed across the ninja's features.

"Clear! He's inside, Nohara-san!" The man shouted in his shaking voice. The door slammed open, nearly catching Fū upside the head, and Rin-sensei stepped inside. As soon as she spotted him, tremendous relief flooded across her pale face, and Naruto felt a weighty guilt press down on his chest. His smile faltered as she strode toward him and grasped his shoulders in a death grip.

A calm anger smoldered in his sensei's eyes, and Naruto gulped. "What the _hell_ were you thinking going off on your own?" Her voice was barely above a whisper, and Naruto felt he would have preferred if she were yelling. "Do you have any idea what could have happened if you ran into trouble?"

"I can take care of anything that comes my way, dattebayo!" Despite the guilt, Naruto felt the need to defend himself. Rin-sensei narrowed her eyes and cuffed him on the ear.

"Don't be stupid," she practically hissed. "If you ran into a rogue chūnin or jōnin, you wouldn't stand a chance and you know it. Remind me what happens to an overconfident ninja?" Naruto hung his head at the rebuke and rubbed at his sore ear.

"They end up dead…" Naruto's voice trailed off. He had never heard Rin-sensei sound so serious before.

"Look, Naruto…" Sensei sighed, tone softening. Naruto looked up and found the usual warmth returned in the jōnin's gaze. "Someday you three will be strong enough to do things on your own, and take on more difficult missions, and even be able to wear orange without being conspicuous." Natsuko and Ayano snickered at the last, easing some of the tension in the room. Naruto grumbled about the jibe against his favorite color.

"But for now, you need to stick with your teammates, work together, and not go gallivanting around in a foreign forest full of unknown dangers when you're supposed to be gathering firewood."

"I understand, Sensei." He was still not used to having anybody to answer to, even after weeks and weeks of training. The fact that she had seemed so _worried_ drove home the fact that she actually cared for his wellbeing, which did not sink in until that moment.

It was a nice feeling.

Rin-sensei patted his shoulder with a kind smile and stood to her full height, turning toward Fū. The mint-haired girl looked completely flustered. "Sorry for barging in like this, but I'm sure you can understand our sense of urgency."

"Sure…" Fū replied, glancing between the five of them with a lost look in her eyes. She was gripping her kunai so tight that her knuckles had turned white. Naruto frowned.

"Still, I thank you for watching after my student." Sensei offered a short bow. Fū nodded in return. "We'll head out now."

"Wait a moment, Nohara-san." Atsuo's spoke for the first time, tapping his chin in thought. "Wouldn't it be easier to just stay for the night? After all, this young lady appears to be a shinobi of Takigakure. We're supposed to meet their representative tomorrow anyway…" Rin-sensei shot the man a sharp glance, and Naruto guessed she was not pleased he revealed their intentions. Still…it was cozy here…

"That's a great idea!" Naruto interjected before either Sensei or Fū could object. "I bet Fū-chan would love the company."

Fū gave him an incredulous look. "Drop the 'chan.'" Her tone brooked no arguments. Naruto grinned, sheepishly running a hand along the back of his head. "But I guess it would be…right to give allies shelter…"

"Great!" Naruto plopped back down to the dirt floor, lying down by the fire. "So," he said, rolling over to look at his host. "Have any ramen?" Fū blinked, Sensei sighed, and Natsuko smacked a palm to her forehead. Atsuo just looked lost.

"Idiot…" Ayano muttered.

* * *

"So, how much further until we get to the meeting point?" Naruto asked, huffing and puffing, as the six of them moved at a leisurely pace along the road. He was carrying _all_ their equipment as punishment for his disappearing act.

"We're almost to the meeting point," Atsuo said, studying a map. "Right, Fū-san?"

"If your map is right, yes," the Taki girl said. She had only agreed to help guide them after constant prodding from Atsuo. It would be "good for relations," he claimed. Naruto just thought Atsuo had no idea where he was going.

"Why can't we just go to the village?" Natsuko asked, her staff twirling through the air.

"Takigakure is a very… _secretive_ village." Sensei explained. "There are not a lot of shinobi, so they keep the village's location a secret to ward off attacks."

"Aren't we allies, though?" Ayano asked.

"Shibuki is more paranoid than his father," Fū said with a bitter note in her tone. "I'm surprised he even agreed to this meeting."

"Shouldn't you look to your leader with a bit more respect, Fū-san?" Atsuo admonished the girl. Fū shrugged and adjusted the bag on her shoulder, eyes locked on the path ahead. Naruto did not really know what to think of the girl. On the one hand she was standoffish and aggressive, but on the other she was kind enough to give him shelter and act as a guide.

Even if she grumbled about it.

"I've been meaning to ask, Motoike-san," Ayano said. "What are these talks even for? Rin-sensei never said."

"That's because they're classified," a new voice interrupted. Naruto, Ayano, and Natsuko immediately formed a defensive triangle around Atsuo while Rin-sensei scanned the area. Fū looked mildly entertained at their reaction.

A tall teenager with long, shaggy brown hair pulled back into a ponytail dropped down from the nearby trees. He wore a rich green kimono over grey trousers, and a Takigakure hitai-ate was secured to his forehead. The teenager was flanked by an older man and woman in full black attire except for light blue flak vests and Takigakure hitai-ates. Naruto eased his defensive stance at the familiar symbol.

"I think that's the first time you've ever scared someone, Shibuki," Fū said, her amusement clear. The female jōnin bristled in irritation.

"You will address Shibuki-sama with the proper respect, girl," the female jōnin said in a hiss.

"I did," Fū countered, hands on her hips. The jōnin took a step forward, but Shibuki held out an arm and she fell back.

"Enough," he declared in a shaky voice. "Not in front of our…guests." He shuffled from foot to foot while looking them over. Naruto found himself agreeing with Fū's opinion of the man. He sounded as nervous as Atsuo did! After a moment Shibuki stepped forward and bowed. "I am honored to accept the honored ambassadors of Konohagakure."

"It's an honor to be accepted, Shibuki-sama," Atsuo declared, returning the bow. "I trust my colleague has sent word ahead with the details?" Shibuki snapped to attention.

"Y-yes!" He said with a pained smile. "Word came just this morning, actually." Naruto shared a glance between his teammates, but they looked as skeptical as he felt.

"Splendid!" Atsuo said with a clap. "Things should go smoothly then. Shall we?"

"Right this way…" Shibuki waved Atsuo ahead of him. He gave the rest of them an apologetic look. "I'm afraid I can only let Motoike-san into the village," he told them.

"I understand," Rin-sensei said with a reassuring smile.

"Shouldn't we go with them?" Naruto asked. He was doubtful Atsuo could handle himself.

"Don't you worry, Naruto-kun," Atsuo said, patting him on the shoulder. "If anything happens, I'm sure these jōnin will protect me." The woman held herself taller at the claim, but the man did not seem to be paying attention. Instead, he was looking at Natsuko with his head cocked slightly to left, a half smile on his face and recognition in his dark eyes. Natsuko shrank under his gaze, her knuckles white around her staff. Naruto felt the need to step between the two.

Ayano beat him to the punch, and as soon as she did the man shook his head and spoke. "Motoike will safe with us," he said in a gruff voice." Naruto narrowed his eyes at the man. He seemed unaffected.

"W-we should be off." The two jōnin and Atsuo nodded at Shibuki, and leapt off after a quick bow.

"Rin-sensei, are you sure?" Ayano asked, casting a sidelong glance at Natsuko. "Do we know we can trust them?"

"Our mission is to escort him to and from Taki." Sensei said, eyes following the foursome as they shrank from sight. "In between, he is under Taki's care. They don't want to provoke Konoha, so Motoike-san will be safe. Trust me." Rin-sensei ruffled Ayano's hair, and the girl blushed. "Good job looking out for your teammate, by the way."

"That guy gave me the creeps…" Natsuko shivered as she spoke, finally relaxing her grip on her staff.

"Did you sense them coming?" Sensei asked, turning to the brunette. Natsuko bit her lip, looking in the direction the four ninja had run off.

"No…I was resting before they got here." She fidgeted her hands.

"Don't worry about," the jōnin said with a gentle tone. "Just keep working on it, okay?" The girl gave an eager nod. "Good reaction time you three, by the way." The three teammates shared a quick grin at the praise.

"So what do we do until they're done?" Ayano asked, already pulling out a scroll from one of the packs on Naruto's back.

"We wait. You can take those off now, Naruto." With a whoop of joy, Naruto let the heavy packs drop to the ground, flopping down after them.

"So much better." He glanced around at his companions and found Natsuko taking a meditative pose, Ayano spreading out her scroll, Sensei digging through one of the packs, and Fū looking in the direction the Taki ninjas and Atsuo went with a scrutinizing look on her face. "What's wrong?" She did not seem to hear him. "Fū?"

The sound of her name snapped her back to reality. "What?"

"I asked what was wrong." The other three were giving her curious looks as well now.

"Nothing…" She trailed off, taking a seat on the hard ground. "It's just that Shibuki was acting really nervous, even by his standards."

"Well, he _is_ a young man," Sensei said. "I'm sure he hasn't had much experience in diplomatic relations, let alone with a larger village like Konoha."

"Yeah, I guess…" Fū said, but did not look convinced

"Who was that creepy guy, anyway?" Naruto asked.

"No idea," Fū said, nonchalant. Naruto's head snapped in her direction, alarmed.

"No idea? Don't you recognize one of your own?" The other three looked mildly alarmed, and Fū blushed, avoiding their gazes.

"I don't get to the village that much." She explained. "Besides, don't tell me you know _every_ ninja in your village?" She crossed her arms just under her modest chest.

"I guess not…" Naruto lied back down, glancing between the rest of his team. Something about this situation just did not sit right with him and he wondered if any of them were as uneasy as he was. He sighed softly. There was nothing he could do about it.

For now.

* * *

Rin sat with a content smile, watching over the four genin with a keen eye. They had moved off the path to a nearby pond to set up camp. The soft orange glow of the setting sun shined off of a small, trickling waterfall that was the only sound in the camp besides the four young ninja sparring, and Rin felt her anxiousness leave her at the serene scene. For her first foray back into the world in years, the mission had gone remarkably smooth.

"I thought you wanted to be Hokage! You'll have to do better!" Fū taunted her opponent, though her words lacked any malice. Four Narutos were attacking her, who warded off their attacks with fluid movements. Naruto's taijutsu had improved leaps and bounds, but the girl clearly had a higher skill as she managed to hold her ground against multiple opponents. Naruto's incoherent shouts filled their camp as he attacked and Rin shook her head. That would probably never change.

"Stay still!" A frustrated Natsuko yelled, chasing down the ever-retreating Ayano. The two were playing a game of cat and mouse while Natsuko tried to close the gap between them to engage the redhead with her staff, but Ayano kept the shorter girl at bay with a barrage of skillfully thrown kunai and shuriken.

Ayano's strength was not close combat and the girl knew it. Instead she dedicated herself to being the best support ninja she could be. Rin was proud that the young girl had taken a shine to the basic medical jutsu scrolls she had provided for the girl. Though she would probably teach the basics to all of her genin eventually…

"I've got you now!" Naruto's shout drew her attention. A wide circle of clones surrounded Fū, who was under a heated attack from another Naruto. They had somehow managed to fight their way on top of the pond.

" **Fūton**!" Rin's eyes widened as each of the clones raced to complete the series of seals and the real Naruto tackled Fū.

"Naruto, wait!" She called, leaping to her feet and toward the two, but it was already too late.

" **Daitoppa!** " The clones unleashed the attack, creating a maelstrom as the techniques clashed against each other. The spiraling wind drew up water from the pond, spraying it at a high speed in all directions. Caught off guard, Rin was hit by a stream and knocked from her feet. The startles yells of Natsuko and Ayano told her they did not escape the water's wrath either.

When she regained her senses moments later, the attack had ended and _everything_ was soaked. Naruto's clones had been dispelled while the real one swayed on his feet, hands held out for balance. Fū was on her hands and knees, gasping for breath through hacking coughs. Ayano and Natsuko sat a few feet away, bedraggled and dripping.

"What part of 'don't go overboard' didn't you get, Naruto?" Rin asked, wringing out her hair. Naruto dropped to the ground, losing his fight with dizziness.

"Sorry Sensei!" He said with a cheeky grin. He sounded anything but.

"Baka," Natsuko declared, inspecting her soaked clothes with a grimace.

"Why'd you even think of using it like that?" Ayano asked. She had run over to their packs and was checking through their contents. Luckily the water had not reached that far.

Naruto shrugged. "Well, I had to do _something,_ and it seemed like a good idea!"

"Well…you got me," Fū said, pushing her green hair behind her ears. She sat back and breathed deep, lungs finally clear. "I was _not_ expecting that!" The girl gave a soft smile to Naruto. Rin grinned. It had taken most of the day, but the Taki girl had warmed up to them.

"Incoming," Natsuko's sudden interruption had them all on alert, and Rin heard the rustling of feet moving through the trees. Her heart picked up as all possible scenarios raced through her mind.

"How many?" She whispered the question, making a note to add hand signals to the list of things to teach the kids. Natsuko held up two fingers and Rin nodded, turning her full attention to the incoming ninja. She felt the four of them take up positions behind her.

She breathed a quiet sigh relief moments later when Atsuo and the male Taki jōnin stepped through the trees. Atsuo blinked in surprise when he noticed them in battle ready position, and his jōnin companion looked bored.

"Expecting a fight?" Nervousness crept in Atsuo's voice and he gazed back into the forest as if an enemy was going to jump at him at any moment.

"Just being cautious," she said, relaxing. Atsuo did not look convinced and Rin had to hold back a sigh. The man's cowardice and demeanor irked her, but his file had claimed him to be a top notch negotiator, so she held her tongue. "How did the negotiations go?"

"Oh fine, fine," the chūnin said, moving further into camp. The kids had crowded around the fire in an attempt to dry off. She noted with a smile that they were paying attention. "Shibuki is only being stubborn on a single, but that should be hammered out by tomorrow. I have no doubt he'll give us what we came here for," he said with a smile, taking a seat by the fire as well.

"That's…good." Politics had never been her thing. "We'll be ahead of schedule, then."

"Seems so." Atsuo nodded, holding his hands close the crackling flames. Three genin did the same on the opposite side. Rin's eyebrows shot up. Where was…

"What's your name anyway?" Rin looked over her shoulder to find Naruto standing in front of the Taki ninja with narrowed eyes. The jōnin kept a neutral expression.

"None of your business kid," he said in a gruff voice. Naruto's jaw and fists clenched and Rin stood up, ready to interfere. The jōnin looked between her and Naruto before rolling his eyes. "I'll come back in the morning, Motoike." With that, the man used a **Shunshin** , disappearing in a puff of dust.

"What are you thinking, Naruto?" Rin asked, rubbing at her pounding temple. That boy was going to cause an international incident at this rate.

"I don't like that guy." Naruto said with a growl.

"You don't have to," Rin said. "But you do have to be civil." The blonde harrumphed, but nodded. He returned to the fire, sitting by Fū and engaging the girl in a frenzied, whispered conversation. Rin narrowed her eyes, but did not interrupt.

"That boy's going to get into trouble one day," Atsuo whispered to her. Rin grimaced, but could not disagree. She sighed as the sun dipped below the horizon and could not help but notice that the relaxing atmosphere of the camp had all but disappeared.

* * *

"This is a brilliant plan!" Naruto said, hands resting behind his head as they walked through the woods. Fū rolled her eyes at the boy's excitement.

"We're only tracking them," she said with a small smile. Despite her best efforts, she could not help liking the blonde boy and his team. It did not hurt that they actually treated her like a person, actual and whole.

" _ **Don't get too attached, Fū-chan,**_ " the familiar voice of her tenant rumbled its warning through her mind, and Fū sighed. Even though she knew better, she had started to _hope_.

"Yeah, but we'll get to know what they're being all secretive about."

"You're Sensei's definitely going to notice…" Naruto waved her off.

"It'll be too late by then!" Fū shook her head in amusement. She had only gone along with his plan because he had begged the night before. They had snuck out to trail after Atsuo and Shibuki's bodyguard ten minutes after they had left in the morning. Getting away from Rin had been surprisingly easy.

They soon came upon the large waterfall that hid the entrance to Taki. Going into the village was the part of the plan she was least looking forward to. She stepped out onto the water, Naruto trailing behind.

"The entrance isn't actually behind a waterfall, is it?" Naruto asked, deadpan. Fū was surprised when she giggled. " _Really?_ Then why are you guys so desperate to keep it hidden?"

"Well, nobody knows _which_ waterfall, right?" Fū offered as she stepped around the cascading falls and into the hidden cavern behind it. Naruto 'ahh'd' at the site, and Fū led him up the familiar path to one of the many branching caves. She felt her heartbeat quicken as they got closer and closer to the village, and internally cursed herself for the weakness.

"You're going to want to hold your breath," she said as they came upon a pool of water. "Just stick close to me, and head up." She dove into the murky depths, habit leading her through the narrow path and out into the open lake where the water cleared. She dodged the roots of the Great Tree and broke the surface with a gasping breath. Moments later, Naruto did the same.

"Whoa!" He said with a gasp, staring at the gigantic tree that grew out of the center of the lake, its canopy shielding the rest of the village. "That tree is _huge_." He was straining his neck to look all the way to the top.

"Come on." She tugged on one of his sleeves to get his attention. "Shibuki's office is on the other side of the village." She pointed in the distance to the only building that was more than two stories tall. Naruto nodded and the two swam toward the closest shore. Fū grimaced when she realized that it was peak time at the marketplace. The bustling vendors did not give them much of a chance to go unseen.

She tried to ignore the stares as she and Naruto moved through the narrow streets, but she still felt the familiar hurt and disappointment creep up. People gave them a wide berth as they moved from stall to stall, and whispers broke out whenever someone noticed them. She had thought becoming a ninja would lessen everyone's hostility toward her, but, if anything, it had only gotten worse in the year since she earned her hitai-ate.

" _ **Sorry, Fū-chan**_." Fū could almost picture the giant beetle putting all seven tails between its legs and sighed. It wasn't at fault for being put in her belly, but she still cursed her fate for being chosen as a host.

"Is everyone in the village usually this angry?" Naruto asked, shifting under all the glares and suspicious whispers that followed them.

"Only when I'm here." She tried to sound strong, but her voice came out as a whisper. She felt Naruto's stare boring into the back of her head, but forced herself to ignore it and keep up her pace. "Shibuki's place is just ahead."

"Right…" As soon as they passed the main road, the duo broke into a run for the tall building. It was set apart from the rest of the village and was surrounded by a low wall that was more for show than to actually keep people out. The two of them leapt the small with ease and crept through the small grounds.

Fū knew that Shibuki's office was on the top floor at the back of the building, and was also aware that the only guards would be posted _inside_. Never being infiltrated by an enemy did wonders for lapses in security, she thought with a grin.

"Okay," she said as they snuck along the back wall of the building. "Shibuki's office is directly above us."

"There's a ledge before each floor." Naruto noted with a grin. Fū rolled her eyes at his obvious observation. The roof was mirrored between each floor, acting as a ledge.

"It should be window on the corner, let's go." It was child's play to climb the ledges and sneak up to the proper window. They shared a quick grin before inching their eyes over the edge of the portal. Shibuki was pacing behind his desk, looking half-panicked, while Atsuo and the male jōnin sat across from him, calm as could be.

"…outrageous request!" He said, a nervous frown on his face. Atsuo and the jōnin shared a glance before the Konoha ninja sighed.

"Shibuki, my dear _boy_." Fū's eyes widened in surprise at Atsuo's confident voice. "I think you'll find our master's request to be perfectly _reasonable_. I would go so far as to call it generous!"

"Generous?" Shibuki scoffed. "You're asking me to give up my village's most prize possession!"

"Not without payment," the jōnin's gruff voice countered.

"My lord has kindly offered to sponsor your village, and he humbly asks for only two things in return."

"Kindly offered?" Shibuki shook his head and sank into his seat. "Threats are kind offers now?" Naruto and Fū shared a confused look.

"Yes, well." Atsuo adjusted his hitai-ate with a bemused smile. "I would say it was more of a promise. You know exactly what he is capable of." Shibuki leaned forward, elbows resting on his desk and face in his hands.

"I don't have much manpower," he said at length, sounding resigned. The grin Atsuo and the jōnin shared sent shivers down Fū's spine.

"Any you can spare will do," Atsuo said with a clap, rubbing his hands together. "And the other condition?" Shibuki reached a hesitant hand into his desk and pulled out two small bottles filled with a crystal clear liquid. Fū's eyes widened

"Water?" Naruto whispered.

"Hero's water…" Fū was shocked. Shibuki was a coward, but to be willing to give up the biggest secret of the village?

"Excellent, excellent." Atsuo snatched the bottles away from Shibuki's trembling hand, giving one to the jōnin. The leader looked to be on the verge of tears.

"Satoshi has bravely volunteered to stay by your side throughout this whole ordeal, Shibuki-kun." Atsuo's cheerily declared, placing a hand on the jōnin's shoulder. Satoshi's grin was predatory.

"Wh-when is this going to happen?"

"Tsk, tsk. So many questions." Atsuo admonished. "You will know the when, where, and how when you need to. But rest assured, you will receive everything you've earned after Konoha is reduced to ash."

"WHAT?!" Fū would have smacked Naruto if her heart had not leapt through her chest. The three heads inside the room snapped in their direction. Shibuki looked shamed, Atsuo looked mildly annoyed, and Satoshi _licked his lips_.

"Idiot!" She yelled, grabbing Naruto and leaping down from the building. "We have to go, _now_!" She did not exactly understand what was going on, but she knew in her gut that her new friends had just been put in mortal danger.

"Sorry," Naruto muttered as they ran. He was pale and his brows were furrowed in thought. It was obvious he was trying to piece things together as well. Atsuo was clearly a traitor, but who was he with?

She led Naruto to a small grove of trees, knowing they needed to plan out their next move. "We should be okay here for a few minutes," she whispered. They needed to get out of the village, but they could not use the path they had used to come in. Fū wracked her brain trying to remember another way, cursing herself for never spending time learning the ins and outs of the village.

"I don't get it," Naruto said. "Why would Atsuo turn traitor?"

"I don't know. Shibuki is a coward, but he never broke his word before." Fū whispered back. "We have to warn your sensei."

"We need to get out of the village!"

"They'll be waiting at the path we used. They'll be much faster than us."

"Well, we can't stay here. We'll have to make a break for it."

"On the count of three, then?" Naruto nodded and they counted down together. As soon as they said three, they shot off out of the grove, chakra-enhanced strides carrying them through the village. They sped through the main road, knocking people out of their way, and the lake soon came into view. Fū felt hope bloom in her chest when there was no sign of either enemy.

"Got you!" That hope was dashed in the split second the harsh voice split the air. Satoshi was suddenly in front of them, a sadistic grin on his face and a sword in his hand. Before either of them could react, he had stabbed Naruto right through the stomach.

Fū's scream of horror died in her throat when Naruto disappeared in a cloud of smoke. She made a mental note to be annoyed at forgetting he was a clone later. At that moment she used Satoshi's shocked stupor as a means to reverse direction and speed away.

_Could really use a boost here, Chōmei_. Even her thoughts sounded frantic.

" _ **It**_ **is** _ **an emergency…**_ " The stingy bijū replied, and Fū felt the Nanabi's chakra flood her system. The familiar sensation of chakra tails sprouting from her back came a moment later and Fū leapt and _flew_.

_Thank you_ , she thought to her constant companion.

" _ **You owe me, Fū-chan**_."

* * *

Naruto blinked and froze as memories came pouring in. Unfortunately for him, this gave Natsuko the perfect opening, and her staff crashed into his gut at full force.

"Got you!" The brunette cheered as Naruto doubled over in pain even as his clone's panic flooded his system.

"Rin-sensei!" He shouted with dismay clear in his voice. Natsuko stopped her victory dance, and Rin-sensei and Ayano paused their spar as well.

"What's the matter?" Naruto locked eyes with his sensei, panic giving way to anger.

"Atsuo is a traitor."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So what did you all think? You got a heavy dose of Naruto in this chapter as he received a few choice lessons about maturity, responsibility, and handling "oh shit" moments.
> 
> That said, you also got a heaping helping of Fū as well! How do you like her so far? She's practically an OC, but I've tried to incorporate everything we know about her when I planned her character out. Let me know what you think!
> 
> I also tried to sprinkle in a bit more humor, as well as dabbling with longer scenes. How'd that work out?
> 
> This is about the halfway point in the Takigakure arc, so I figure another chapter or two left to go. Next up, major action! Until then, please review! (Use ALL the exclamation points!)


	6. Hello, Kyūbi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor do I profit from this work. I'm merely using it as an exercise to improve my writing and for my own and others enjoyment.
> 
> A/N: Here's your first real action packed chapter! Please read, enjoy, and let me know what you think!

  


* * *

**Team Rin**

**Chapter 06**

**Hello, Kyūbi  
**

* * *

Rin was reeling after Naruto explained the searched her memories of the man, how few there were, looking for any indication of Atsuo's duplicity. She had not cared, she realized, having brushed him off as a cowardly chūnin. She ground her teeth together with a growl.

Damn it, she was smarter than that!

"Rin-sensei?" Ayano's unsure voice brought her back to the present. She ran through the scenario in her mind, years of training and habits forming possible solutions. They were betrayed, two hostile ninjas were engaging the only known friendly in Takigakure, and the rest of the population was of unsure loyalty. Coerced or not, Shibuki could no longer be trusted.

Her instincts told her to charge in, rescue the friendly, and get the hell out, but the information _had_ to be brought back to Konoha, and she was the only one with combat experience. Logic left only one viable choice and it left a bitter taste in her mouth.

She opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated at the combination of fear and fierce determination that shined from her genins' eyes. _Those who abandon friends and allies are less than trash. That's what I learned from Obito_. Kakashi's words, spoken so long ago, left an odd combination of anxiousness and excitement in her belly. Visions of her own capture on that disastrous mission flooded her mind, and Rin knew exactlywhat she had to do. This was going to be a lesson her students would never forget.

"Screw logic," she whispered, looking over each of her students in turn. Was this the right call? Would they all survive? What if she could not protect them? Rin let herself panic for half a breath before she pushed the doubt away. There would be time for it later. "If we're going to do this, we're going to do it _right_." Her tone had the genin at full attention.

"You three will act as _support_ until I say otherwise, clear?" Three sharp nods. "We are going to get into Taki, get Fū, and capture Atsuo. But if something happens and I tell you to retreat without me, you _will_ go. Understood?"

"Yes Sensei!" They chorused.

"Let's go, then." A shadow clone popped into existence in a puff of smoke and wasted no time in sprinting away. Rin fell in step behind, and her students raced behind her. "Naruto?" She called without turning behind her. "What can I expect for terrain?"

"Er, well, we'll be coming out of a lake?" She held back a sigh and grimaced. Both at Naruto's lack of reconnaissance skills and the idea of being surrounded by water. Water techniques were not exactly her area of expertise.

"Anything else?" She prompted. It was yet another thing to work on for her three.

"The village is sort of tucked away under a big, _big_ tree. Shibuki's place is on the far end from the secret entrance, but I didn't really pay attention at the time…" She nodded, sparing a glance behind her to see Naruto's guilt stricken face.

"It's alright," she said to him. "Stay focused on the task at hand." Possible scenarios raced through her mind, but she knew none of them were viable until she saw the village herself.

"We're almost there," the clone shouted. A large rock face loomed ahead of them, with a dazzling waterfall cascading down its smooth surface and into a crystal clear pond. Rin would have appreciated the beauty of the scene under any other circumstance.

The clone sprinted across the water, and Rin had a passing moment of pride when it did not need to break its pace from the transition from ground to water. It rushed through the waterfall without slowing down, and Rin followed, passing through the water into the cavern beyond. They ascended the rocks with chakra enhanced jumps, and arrived at a pool that Naruto said would lead into the village.

"Natsuko?" She asked as they stood around the small body of water painted a deep navy. The brunette squinted her eyes shut, turning her head as if to listen to the village beyond.

"There are three people fighting," she said after a short moment. "A bunch of others are watching from a distance."

"Can you tell how strong they are?" Natsuko focused harder, sweat dripping from her brow, but shook her head in defeat.

"No, sorry Sensei…"

"You did well," Rin assured the girl with a half smile. Natsuko nodded, and the frustration left her face, somewhat.

"Ayano." Rin reached into one of her many utility pockets, searching for a specific vial. The redhead stood at attention, arms rigid at her sides. "You have the best aim with ranged weapons." The girl blushed lightly and Rin grinned when her hand grazed smooth glass. "You are to coat a weapon with this-" She handed the small vial to the girl, who held it in a gentle grasp. "And use it only when you have a clear shot. It is an extremely powerful paralytic-"

"One's coming closer Sensei!" Ayano interrupted, panic edging into her voice. "Fast!" Rin's eyes locked onto the dark pool, hands already moving through familiar seals as the surge of adrenaline flooded her system.

"Tell me when he gets close…" She hissed, focusing on converting her chakra to her native element. Her upper body grew hot as fire chakra built up in her upper _tenketsu_.

"Now!"

" **Katon: Hibashiri!** " Her voice echoed as chakra burst through system and a violent surge of fire streamed from her mouth, hitting the surface water and whipping up a cloud of steam. Rin kept tight control of her chakra reserves, using only enough to heat the water to unbearable temperatures.

"He's moving away!" Natsuko declared and Rin grinned behind the flames, cutting off the technique. She crouched by the steaming water, one hand held just above the surface while the other wiped sweat from her brow.

"They were going to pursue us," she informed her genin. "We just lost the element of surprise, but, with any luck, whoever that was is a bit more singed now."

"He's back with the other two now." Natsuko had her eyes squeezed shut, fingers rubbing circles on her temples. "Two of them are ganging up on the third." Her voice trembled and Rin knew the girl was using a lot of her chakra to stay that focused.

"Enough, Natsuko," she gently admonished. "Save some for the fight." The girl gave a wary nod, grey eyes full of apprehension.

"We have to get in there!" Naruto was bouncing from foot to foot, staring at her with desperate eyes. She dipped a hand into the hot water, finding it tolerable.

"Let's go then. Remember what I said." With that, she dove in, ignoring every nerve of her body to get out of the scalding water. Three yelps of surprise or pain, distorted through the water, told her that the three teens had followed her into the blistering depths.

Rin pushed chakra through her feet and hands, barreling through the water at breakneck speeds. The underwater cave she had found herself in soon widened and she was surrounded by nothing but the hazy depths of a lake. Contorting her body, her momentum jetted her through the surface of the water to the sky. She analyzed the scene in a split moment.

Fū was _flying_ above the water, dodging and maneuvering around kunai, shuriken, and water ninjutsu being bombarded at her by Atsuo. A telltale whistle assaulted her ears and Rin drew a kunai and deflected the metal soaring at her vital points with deadly intents. Below her, a man she recognized as one of Shibuki's bodyguards was snarling at her. His skin shone an angry red and Rin grinned as gravity brought her back down. She tossed the kunai and the man dodged backward, toward shore.

She landed in a crouch on the surface of the water, quickly bouncing to the side as her opponent volleyed another round of shuriken toward her. There were three splashes in quick succession that told her the genin had caught up. The enemy eyed them with a grin that turned Rin's stomach.

" **Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu**!" Three balls of raging orange and yellow jettisoned toward the man. It was a weak technique, meant for little more than distractions, but it forced her opponent closer to the shore.

And _away_ from her students.

"You guys need to _go_!" Fū's yell sounded across the lake, her movements in the air fluid and graceful. Rin was almost transfixed by the waves of orange chakra that surrounded the girl and formed her insect-like wings.

"Naruto filled us in," she said, focusing on her opponent. He looked happy enough to wait for her to attack. "And we're not in the habit of leaving allies behind!"

"How sweet." Atsuo's voice had taken on a condescending air. "The will of fire is always so heartwarming."He leapt back as Fū took the opportunity to lunge at him. The girl missed, slicing into the water, causing a roaring splash. A soaked Atsuo jumped away from the lake, casting a wary glance at the darkened depths.

He landed next to his partner on the shore, and Fū burst from the water, her aura gone. She landed next to Rin, her breaths heavy.

"I was trying to buy you guys some time to get away," she said, eyes locked on the duo of enemy ninjas.

Rin shrugged. "Thanks for that, but I don't like to leave my people behind."

"I'm _not_ your people," Fū said with a hint of desperation in her voice. She jabbed her Taki hitai-ate in emphasis.

"You are now." Naruto said, giving the green haired girl a hard look. "We're friends, right?" The girl opened and closed her mouth, but no sound came out.

"Naruto's right," Natsuko said with a bright smile that belied their situation. Ayano nodded her agreement and Rin swelled in pride for a moment.

" **Suiton: Mizu no Shuriken!** " A sudden barrage of shuriken formed of water soared at the group, and they scattered. Her genin and Fū ended up further out on the lake while Rin had moved toward shore. "Take care of the jōnin, Satoshi!" Atsuo barked the order to his partner. Rin heard Natsuko's gasp, but could not look back before Satoshi was on her, throwing a punch with a laugh.

Rin bent back at the waist and her opponent's fist glided through open air. She shifted her weight onto her hands and sent a vicious double kick to the man's open gut, cutting off his laughter and sending him flying backwards. She flipped back up and ran after Satoshi, kunai in hand. If she could finish this quickly, the children would not have to hold off Atsuo for long.

Satoshi had landed on his feet, wiping blood from his chin with a sickening grin. Rin grimaced. She hated fighting his type. Her footing shifted from water to land and she brought her kunai to bear, held in a reverse grip. Satoshi drew a short sword and met her kunai mid swing, the cling of metal grinding against metal ringing in her ears.

Rin placed a second hand on her kunai, struggling to gain leverage against the larger weapon. Satoshi grinned, and Rin felt her feet sink into the ground, throwing her off balance. Satoshi's sword flashed away from her kunai, and Rin forced herself to fall backward to avoid the slash. She winced as the steel grazed her cheek, but a cut was better than losing her head.

With feet on either of her sides, Satoshi arced a powerful stab in an overhead swing. Rin caught the blow with the flat of her kunai and glanced at her feet. They had sunken into the earth up to her ankles. She gave a sharp yank and her feet came free, letting her knee Satoshi in the backside. The enemy ninja rolled forward and off of her.

"Pure earth chakra manipulation…" She muttered as she regained her feet. If he could do that with his feet and no hand seals, he would be a tough opponent. Satoshi gave her no more time to think and was on her again, sword and eyes both flashing with deadly intent.

Rin met the attack but kept on the move, intent on not getting stuck in one of Satoshi's earth traps again. Satoshi was hot on her heels and she knew she could not put distance between them with just running. She fended off his sword strikes with her kunai held in her right hand and formed seals with her left. It would not be as effective, but…

" **Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu.** " The weak fireball spilled from her mouth, and Satoshi slipped to the right to dodge, cutting the fireballs with his sword if they got too close. Rin was already forming another jutsu, superheated chakra rising in her chest.

" **Katon: Gōkyakyū no Jutsu!** " A fireball twice the size of her opponent formed in front of Rin, and she wasted no time in sending it hurtling towards the man. It covered the distance between them in seconds and she heard him grunt in surprise. The attack exploded, covering their battlefield in smoke.

Rin stood stock still, listening for any sign of her opponent. Long moments of quiet ticked by, the only noise coming from the distant battle between Atsuo and the genin. Rin's eyes widened when a spike of earth broke through smoke right in front of her and she had to throw herself backwards to avoid the deadly projectile. A second one jetted toward her, and then another, and another.

Rin danced between the barrage of stone and the smoke cleared. Satoshi was standing atop an earthen wall, hands locked in the _ram_ seal. The spikes were forming and launching from the wall, and they seemed to be picking up speed.

"Shit…" She hissed as one of the spikes nicked her arm, and another her leg. She hoped the genin were having better luck than her.

* * *

Natsuko lowered herself into a stance, staff held at the ready. Ayano, Naruto, and Fū stood beside her and adopted their own stances. Atsuo was standing a good dozen meters away, an amused smile on his face.

"Four against one? Where's your sense of fair play?" His tone was light, condescending, and he made no move to attack them. Natsuko's gaze slipped behind the man fighting with Rin-sensei and her breath hitched. Ever since Atsuo had called him Satoshi, her head had been spinning. It was only now that she saw how he resembled her parents' assailant's picture in the bingo book. Eyes, hair, build, scars. They all matched, and Natsuko tensed, the prospect of revenge crossing her mind.

"Fū," Ayano whispered, eyes still locked on the waiting Atsuo. "Can you still do the flying jutsu?" Natsuko shook her head, and focused on the opponent in front of her. She would have to trust Rin-sensei to take him out.

"I…" The girl closed her eyes, jaw tightening. Her face tensed for a moment before relaxing. "Yes, I can." Ayano nodded, let out a breath, and glanced to Natsuko. The fire in the redhead's eyes filled Natsuko with confidence.

"Point?" She asked the taller girl. Ayano nodded and Natsuko took a moment to calm herself. She would have to trust Rin-sensei to take care of Satoshi.

Even if he took on both her parents and brother and won.

"Naruto?"

"Leave it to me," Naruto's cheery grin flashed and two clones popped into existence behind him. Fū's crimson aura formed and the girl leapt to the air. Atsuo's hands dropped to his sides, but his expression did not change. Natsuko and the real Naruto shared a glance, nodded, and charged.

Natsuko lashed out with her staff, aiming high. Naruto and his clones went after the man's legs. Atsuo contorted himself in a jump, dodging both attacks and landing clean on the surface. Natsuko brought her staff down, but he caught it with a hastily drawn kunai. They locked for a moment and the clones dove in for a grapple, but again the chūnin jumped clear from their advances.

He was forced to stay on the move as Ayano lobbed shuriken from behind him and Fū corralled him with weapons thrown from above, driving him back toward Naruto and Natsuko. The two unleashed another offensive barrage, but, despite attacks from four different angles, Atsuo was able to keep up and avoid taking a blow.

But his smile had disappeared.

Natsuko was a blur of motion, intent on finishing off this opponent and take on the man who had injured her parents. Still, Atsuo was able to meet each of her blows and fend off Naruto at the same time. Each moment there appeared to be an opening, either Ayano or Fū attacked, but Atsuo still managed to avoid taking a significant hit.

" **Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!** " Naruto formed more clones as Natsuko kept Atsuo engaged with the spinning motions of her bōjutsu. From the cheers the clones shouted a moment later, Natsuko estimated that at least a dozen had popped into existence.

Atsuo gave ground to Natsuko's attacks, hands weaving through a series of seals. " **Suiton: Suiben!** " Water rose up from the lake to Atsuo's hands, forming a gleaming stream. He spun in a circle and the water whipped out, but Natsuko used her staff to launch herselfabove the attack.

Naruto and his clones were not so lucky. A dozen puffs of smoke formed as the whip ripped through the clones and the original was sent flying back, skipping across the surface like a stone. The man held his whip loose in one hand, a taunting grin crossing his features. Natsuko growled and charged again.

Atsuo laughed. "Is this the best you four can come up with? I've faced stronger—" Fū came up from beneath the surface, drilling Atsuo in the chin with a powerful punch. The chūnin was sent flying back, and Natsuko did not waste the opportunity. She leapt above the man and swung her staff down with all her might. The man's eyes widened in pain as the wood made solid contact, and he was sent rocketing beneath the water.

Atsuo was back above the surface in moments, clutching his stomach and wearing a devious grin. "Not bad, not bad!" He complimented, hands already forming new seals. "Let's see how you do with _this_!" Naruto sent clones after the chūnin, hoping to catch him before he finished his jutsu, but it was too late. Natsuko braced herself for the inevitable impact.

" **Suiton: Daibakufu no Jutsu!** " A giant torrent of water rose before Atsuo and rushed at them with blinding speed. Natsuko leapt back, but her ankle was caught in the maelstrom. She was whipped back, her back slamming painfully against the water beneath her. Her breath was cut off as her world became nothing but the surging water around her. Up and down had no meaning and she fought desperately for breath.

When the jutsu ended almost a full minute later, Natsuko gasped in a miraculous lungful of air. She groaned and sat up, coughing and trying to gain her senses. Her redheaded teammate was next to her on her hands and knees, spluttering for breath.

Naruto and Fū had somehow avoided the raging waves.

Ayano grasped a handful of shuriken and ran back out onto the water, rejoining the fight as Atsuo drove Naruto and Fū back. Natsuko was about to rush back in, but hesitated when she heard her Sensei's battle cry. She looked between the two fights, indecision freezing time for a single breath. Her sense of duty played against the desire for revenge in her mind, and she was frozen in indecision. At that moment, Rin-sensei delivered a savage punch to Satoshi's jaw, and Natsuko knew which fight she wanted to join.

" **Doton: Nebari no Numa…** " She whispered, hands contorting through clumsy seals. She slammed her hand into the ground as Satoshi dodged another of her sensei's attacks, and he landed in her swamp.

"What the?!" The man looked at his feet with wide, desperate eyes. Rin-sensei wasted no time in pouncing on the man, and delivered a powerful elbow to his chin, launching him out of the sticky mud. The jōnin sensei sent a glare her way, but Natsuko ignored it and took up position beside the older woman. This man had _hurt_ her parents, and she would make sure that he ended up the same.

* * *

" **Fūton: Daitoppa!** " Naruto shouted in desperation. Atsuo, who had gotten inside of his guard with a kunai aiming for his heart, was sent flying backwards. Naruto'sbreaths came in quick bursts as he retreated alongside Fū and Ayano. He shivered as he got close, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. Fū's chakra cloak was still going strong and while it let the girl fly, which was _awesome_ , it put Naruto on edge. Ayano, on his other side, was sweating bullets and her face was screwed up in concentration. Naruto frowned, knowing his teammate had lower stamina.

"I _will_ kill you!" Atsuo shouted as he recovered. Naruto used the moment to look for his other teammate. Natsuko had joined Rin-sensei against the other shinobi and Naruto felt a small spark of annoyance. Rin-sensei could handle herself, but _they_ would probably need her help.

"Not today!" Ayano yelled back at the man, a fiery look in her green eyes as she threw a kunai aimed to kill. Naruto was off like a jet as soon as the metal flew, and followed up the projectile with a vicious kick, but Atsuo was already on the move. He jumped over Naruto's kick and below Fū's follow up dive. He landed on his hands and flipped back to his feet, hands moving through a series of seals. Naruto cursed under his breath and skidded to a halt as Atsuo raised his hands.

" **Suiton: Daibakufu no Jutsu!** " Atsuo shouted, and again a torrent of raging water rose and shot at Naruto and his fellow were too close to escape it this time; and Naruto braced for impact.

Naruto grunted as the rushing tide struck him in the chest, and his next breath was met with nothing but water. Instinctual panic flooded his mind as he fought against the jutsu's current with all his might. He pushed chakra through his hands and feet and forced himself into a spread eagle position. Naruto halted against the torrent and _climbed_ toward daylight, the jutsu battering him all the way.

His head broke the surface as the technique ended he took a grateful gasp of air. A quick check of his surroundings showed him that Fū had avoided the attack again, and was engaging Atsuo in hand to hand combat. Naruto felt a surge of glee as Atsuo winced every time he blocked one of her blows. That cloak was more than just for flight, then.

"Naruto…" The blonde's attention snapped to his teammate's weak voice. Ayano was floating on her back, barely keeping above the surface. Her eyes were half lidded, her clothes were in tatters, and she looked like one giant bruise. Naruto was at her side at once, lifting her out of the water.

"Are you alright?" He asked in a panic. He looked toward Rin-sensei, knowing she would be able to heal the girl, but the woman was engaging the enemy jōnin while defending Natsuko at the same time.

"Not…not really." Ayano coughed and winced. "Get me to shore? I can rest for a moment and be back in the fight." Her voice was getting weaker, but Naruto did as she said and raced across the surface of the lake. When he reached shore he cast an unenthusiastic look toward the village in the distance, but it seemed deserted. They would not get any help from there today.

"Go help Fū," she ordered him, forcing herself to sit up, clutching at her side. She dug through her pouch with her free hand. "I just need a minute and I'll be back out there." Naruto was doubtful, but held his tongue. With a quick salute, he turned and raced back out onto the lake and toward the battling shinobi.

Just as he reached them, Fū landed a knee and cross punch combo that had the chūnin spiraling backward. The genin girl stood, arm still extended from the punch, with a small smirk gracing her features. Her breathing was labored, but otherwise looked fine. Naruto was impressed with her stamina.

"Impressive." Atsuo rubbed his swollen lip and spat out a glob of blood. He sported an angry purple bruise on his cheek, and his hands were red like they had been burned. "But I'm tired of playing games." He shot them a feral grin. "I've been gifted with powers far beyond those of a normal shinobi!"

Atsuo's eyes closed as his hands formed a seal Naruto had never seen before. A deep purple chakra started to glow around his upper arm and began to spread. Naruto flexed his fists and danced on the balls of his feet, a deep sense of unease settling in the pit of his stomach. Whatever that chakra was, it was much worse than the feeling Fū's chakra cloak gave him. He glanced to his ally, finding her looking just as off put as he felt.

He held up a kunai with an eyebrow raised in question. Fū nodded and reached for her own threw a wave of kunai at the chūnin, knowing Fū would do the same, and jumped after them, forming his first jutsu he had ever mastered. Atsuo jumped to the air, eyes snapping open, and he avoided the barrage. Naruto was quick to follow, a dozen clones forming at his back.

As they leveled off in the air, Naruto saw the effects of Atsuo's jutsu. Small black circles had spread across Atsuo's face, disappearing beneath the man's clothes. His eyes were wide and filled with aeuphoric glee that was matched by the man's wicked smile. Atsuo made a single seal and a new water whip sprung to life in his hands. It lashed out before Naruto could react. His clones were destroyed in the sweep, and the solid Naruto was sent rocketing backwards.

"Got you." A pair of hands wrapped under Naruto's arms, snatching him from the air. Fū's chakra cloak was hot against his back as they sank back down to the lake. He muttered his thanks, blushing as he was pressed against some uncomfortable places.

Atsuo was already slamming his hands against the water when they made it back to the surface. A vortex of water formed at the man's side, roaring in the wind as the water spun at high speeds. Atsuo grin widened and he pointed at them. The drilling vortex burst into motion, flying at the two of them. Naruto jumped away from Fū and they ran in opposite directions, but the torrent split into two.

He had to keep up an intense pace to keep in front of the jutsu, pushing chakra through his feet the entire time. He made the hand seal, and two clones popped into existence behind him. They turned to try to stop the water drill, but Naruto almost doubled over a second later when their memories assaulted him. They had been run straight through by the attack and the phantom pain echoed in Naruto's chest.

So if nothing could physically stop the jutsu, then what? Naruto wracked his brain for a solution. Atsuo was roaring with laughter as his arms guided the drills and Naruto shivered. Whatever technique gave the man the black marks made him crazy. An idea popped into Naruto's head and he switched direction, sprinting straight at the laughing chūnin.

Naruto's heart sped up in anticipation as he got closer and closer to the man without being noticed. Just a few more meters...

"Think you're clever, do you?" His hopes were dashed as Atsuo locked eyes with him.

" **Hiden: Rinpungakure no Jutsu!** " Fū yelled, and the world became nothing but blinding white light. Naruto heard someone scream, but was preoccupied clutching at his eyes and falling through the surface, concentrating only on his burning eyes. Desperate, he forced his eyes open in the water, and almost groaned in relief at the soothing coolness.

A hand broke into the water and yanked him up by his arm. Naruto lashed out as soon as he passed through into the air, catching the person off guard with a kick to the gut. He flipped away and landed, glaring at whoever it was with blurry vision.

"Naruto, I'm _sorry_ ," Fū said, her voice quiet. Naruto blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision, but the girl was just a green, white, and red blur. "There was no way I could warn you, _and_ I got Atsuo too." She sounded sincere and Naruto dropped his guard and dunked his head beneath the water again. When he came up his vision had cleared, and then he paled at what he saw.

Fū was clutching at her left side, where her white shirt had gone red. The girl grimaced and sank to her knees, her chakra cloak disappearing. Naruto ran to her side, but was unsure about what to do.

"That was a dirty trick!" Atsuo's angry roar followed a splash and the chūnin walked toward them with murder in his eyes. "That will _not_ work on me again." Naruto sent a score of clones to buy them some time.

"What can I do?" Naruto asked, eyes focused on the blood seeping from her wound. Fū pulled her hand away, but blood oozed out at a quicker pace and she slammed the hand back to it. Naruto reached into his pouch for his roll of bandages even as memory after memory flowed into his head for every clone Atsuo killed.

"Lift your shirt," Naruto told her. He sent another wave of clones at their enemy, knowing it was only a stopgap. Fū obeyed, pulling her ruined shirt above the wound. "It doesn't look too bad," he told her, starting to wrap the bandage around her stomach.

"I think it only grazed me," she said, and winced when the bindings crossed the wound.

"Sorry," Naruto said, avoiding eye contact as his hands trailed against the girl's soft skin while he wrapped her.

"Clones won't be enough!" Naruto clutched his head as every clone was popped at once. Grimacing, he forced himself to make more. "They can't even get past my whip!" Atsuo's voice was full of irritation, and Naruto had a spark of inspiration.

"Fū, can you Henge?" He asked as he taped the bandage closed. Fū moved her left arm in a full circle with only a small grimace.

"Yeah, I think so," the girl replied, and Naruto grinned.

* * *

Atsuo was trying to force his annoyance away and failing. Clone after clone lunged at him, all shouting their high pitched battle cry, and each one fell with a sharp snap of his water whip. He ground his teeth and spun in a tight circle, forcing the whip to the greatest length he could manage. Every clone disappeared in a puff of smoke as the whip tore through them.

He turned to where the original and the girl were, and found nothing but a large wall of smoke rising from the lake. His eyes narrowed, and his chakra enhanced vision could make out over a dozen shadows standing in the smoke. Atsuo growled, and his upper right arm burned as he drew more chakra from Lord Orochimaru's mark. The boy never learned, but Atsuo was done playing.

The smoke cleared, and a dozen clones were standing at attention. Behind them, the real Naruto was glaring at him, holding the Taki girl bridal style. The way her body was limp meant that she was either unconscious or dead. Atsuo grinned, his bloodlust roaring for more.

"Come on!" He taunted the boy, whose face contorted in anger. Naruto shouted something and the clones charged at Atsuo. This time they were silent as they ran to their doom, and Atsuo was endlessly grateful for that. He raised his whip, gave it a taunting twirl and waited for them to be in range. As soon as they were close enough he spun, and the whip sliced through them like a knife through butter.

Except for one.

Atsuo's eyes widened when the last Naruto took the whip with nothing more than a wince as the water wrapped around him. Before the chūnin could react, the boy had taken a deep breath, and Atsuo realized he had been had.

" **Hiden: Rinpungakure no Jutsu!** " In the brief second before Atsuo slammed his eyes shut, Naruto flickered and was replaced by Fū. Despite his closed eyes, his eyes began to burn for the second time that day. He released control of the chakra in his feet, but something hit him in the small of the back before he could sink beneath the water, and he was sent forward.

Before he could hope to recover, a pair of hands caught him, spun, and threw him back in the other direction. Instead of hitting water, three boots impacted his back, and sent him flying into the air. Atsuo forced his eyes open, but between the rushing air and his tears, he could only make out a blonde blur and green blur flying past him. He contorted in the air, finding that two more blurs had appeared, caught the first two, and had thrown them back toward Atsuo. The chūnin tried to form a jutsu, but it was too late.

" **Fūzumaki Rendan**!" Naruto and Fū shouted, and Atsuo coughed in pain as the genin drilled him in the chest with a pair of powerful kicks. His ribs protested under the pressure, and he was sent barreling down to the water. Atsuo forced himself to flip over in midair, facing the lake. If he landed right, then he could recover from this and kill the annoying bastards.

" **Fūton: Daitoppa!** " Atsuo had a half second to panic before the barreling winds slammed into him. He speed doubled and he hit the surface with the distinct audible _cracks_ of breaking bones.

Atsuo felt nothing but his master's power receding back to the seal as he lost consciousness.

* * *

Ayano sat and stared at the small red pill in her hand. She had recovered somewhat from Atsuo's attack, but was still exhausted. The soldier pill would replenish her chakra and give her a burst of energy, but not without consequences afterwards. She looked between the two fights with a frown. Rin-sensei was keeping her enemy on the ropes with a strong combination of fire ninjutsu and taijutsu, with Natsuko attacking any opening she saw.

On the other side, Naruto and Fū were running for their lives from gigantic water drills, and Ayano reacted. She tossed the pill into her mouth and chomped on it. The effects were immediate, and she felt her chakra system flood with renewed vigor. She ran onto the lake, intent on flanking Atsuo.

But then Natsuko screamed.

Of their own will, her feet switched direction, and she raced toward her teammate. Even from this distance, Ayano could see the ring of earth that encased Natsuko's left forearm, and her stomach churned at just how _wrong_ the angle of the limb looked.

Sensei was already attacking the enemy again, and the earthen ring disintegrated. Natsuko sank to her knees, clutching her broken arm to her chest, and Ayano was there within moments. She placed a gentle hand on her teammate's shoulder, but the girl recoiled at the touch.

"Calm down," Ayano said in as calm a tone as she could muster. Natsuko relaxed at the familiar voice. Ayano glanced back at the battling ninja, and caught Rin-sensei's eye while she grappled with the man. The woman jerked her head, then focused back on her opponent. The message was clear. "C'mon," she said, putting Natsuko's good arm over her shoulder. "We've got to move."

They jumped a dozen meters away from the fighting shinobi, and Ayano gingerly set her teammate on the ground. She studied the broken arm, swallowing her unease. Halfway down the forearm, Natsuko's limb bent at an impossible angle. Ayano could see the tips of the broken bone pushing against her skin.

"I'm going to have to set it," Ayano said, hating how unsure she sounded. "I think it's a clean break."

"You _think_?" Natsuko asked, incredulous. Ayano bit back a retort, knowing the pain had to be intense. Still, Ayano was hesitant. They had only learned basic first aid at the Academy, and Rin-sensei's scrolls were filled with nothing but the extreme basics of medical jutsu. But she was sure she could do this.

Almost.

"Just trust me. Rin-sensei can make sure it's fixed later, but it has to be taken care of _now_." Mollified, Natsuko extended her arm just enough for Ayano to get a grip on it. She held either side of the break, and stared into Natsuko's worry-filled grey eyes. "On the count of three?" Natsuko nodded. "One…" In one swift motion, Ayano had straightened her teammate's arm. To the girl's credit, Natsuko only let out a quiet yell, and Ayano could barely see the tears.

" _What the hell?_ " Natsuko practically hissed, her eyes jammed shut. Ayano ignored the complaint and stared splinting and wrapping the girl's arm, with the supplies from her standard kit. As soon as she taped it off, Natsuko cradled her arm close to her chest. Ayano stood.

"I'm going to go help Rin-sensei, try not to move the arm." She turned, but Natsuko grabbed her hand with her good arm.

"Be _careful_." Natsuko implored her. Once again Ayano locked eyes with her teammate. "He's Satoshi. The one who hurt my family." A moment passed and an understanding passed between them. Ayano gave a sharp nod and left to the fight.

Rin-sensei was being driven back as spike after spike of rock rose from the ground, following her wherever she went. The enemy held his hands out, guiding the attack toward her sensei. Sensei managed to dodge most of them, but Ayano could see the cuts, scrapes and bruises from where the attack had hit.

She palmed a kunai, snuck up behind the man, and leapt on his back. She hacked and slashed with her kunai, and while his flak vest took the brunt of the attacks, Ayano knew she had to be doing _some_ damage.

The man broke his jutsu as soon as he felt her weight, grabbed her arm, and flipped her over his shoulder. She landed hard on her back with a pained grunt, and the man stalked toward her, drawing a sword. Ayano scrambled to her feet, but Sensei beat her to the punch.

The jōnin leapt in, kicked the man's wrist, sending the sword flying. Sensei landed, carrying the momentum of her jump into a spinning kick that caught the man in the chest, and had him stumbling backwards. Sensei regained her feet, hands flying through seals.

" **Katon: Gōkyakyū no Jutsu!** " A great fireball spewed from Sensei's mouth, and, with no time to dodge, her enemy crossed his arms in the vain attempt to block. The rotten stench of burning flesh made Ayano gag as the enemy was sent flying toward the lake. Sensei turned to her, and Ayano felt fear for a moment before the woman smiled her usual gentle smile.

"Good job on the distraction," was all she said.

"No problem!" Ayano said, blushing at the praise.

"Oye! Sensei!" The two of them turned, and Ayano felt immense relief to see her other teammate healthy as well. The blonde was trailed by Natsuko, still cradling her arm, and Fū, who kept a hand clutched to her side. Behind them , a trio of clones was carrying a motionless Atsuo.

"Is he…?" Ayano trailed off.

"Unconscious," Fū said. A moment of silence passed, and Ayano was not sure what to feel or how to act. What was the protocol after a battle?

"I'm proud of you four," Sensei began, but was interrupted by a loud splash. All five of them snapped their attention to the shore, where Satoshi stood, a snarl twisting his features burned features. His clothes above the waist had been burned away, leaving only charred flesh behind. His arms hung at his sides, useless, and his eyes were wide and crazed. Ayano recoiled from the gruesome sight.

"I will not be killed that easily!" He shouted, voice cracking. "Orochimaru-sama has given me powers beyond that of a normal man!" The man began to tremble, and a deep purple chakra began to form around him. Ayano heard Natsuko gasp behind her and could only wonder what that chakra must have felt like.

The man's eyes closed in concentration. "I will kill you all slo—" The man's eyes snapped open , and he stared, wide-eyed, at the three kunai sticking out of his chest. And like someone flipped a light switch, the burned man collapsed to the ground.

"If you ever have an ability that requires charging," Sensei said, lowering her arm. "Always do it where an enemy does not have a clear shot." Despite her nonchalant tone, Rin-sensei wore a deep frown. Ayano wondered if ninja ever got used to killing.

"What now, Sensei?" Natsuko asked, voice small. Ayano felt a pang of sympathy at just how _relieved_ her teammate sounded.

"Now," Rin-sensei said, giving the genin her full attention. "We _talk_ to Shibuki, and bring the traitor back to Konoha. Any idea where he might be, Fū?"

The Taki genin nodded. "He's probably hidi—"

"Sensei, look out!" Naruto's sharp warning came just in time as Sensei cocked her head to the side, and a kunai only grazed her neck instead of embedding itself in the back of her head. Ayano, though, focused on the impossible sight on the shore.

Satoshi stood, an aura of dark purple chakra surrounding him, and he had _changed_. Gone were the burns, and instead Satoshi's skin had become green-grey and leathery. His hair had gone chalk-white and his eyes golden-yellow with slit pupils, but worst of all was his grin. Two rows of long, sharp teeth gleamed in the sunlight, a thick, forked tongue flicking in and out between them.

He was a monster.

"What the hell _are_ you?" Rin-sensei took a step forward, but stumbled. Satoshi's grin grew wider and Ayano felt pure unadulterated fear as Rin-sensei fell to her knees. Her eyes clouded over, and she reached a trembling hand up to her neck. It came away bloody. "Poison…" Sensei whispered, then pitched forward, unconscious. Time did not move for an eternity and an instant.

"No…" Ayano heard herself whisper, tears stinging at her eyes. Sensei _had_ to be fine. She would get up any second. "No…" Her voice grew louder, but still Sensei did not move. "No. No. No." Her focus shifted to the man responsible, and she felt a fire burn in her belly that she had never experienced before. "No!" She leapt to her feet, and Satoshi grinned. She screamed an incoherent battle cry and ran at the demon. He had hurt _her_ Rin-sensei. And he would die.

Behind her, Naruto _roared_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And there's chapter 6! Action scenes are always something I'm working to improve, so let me know if they flowed well and were exciting, or if they fell flat. Either way, the feedback is much appreciated!
> 
> I tried to give everyone a bit of time in the limelight, but some may have shined brighter than others. I especially focused on trying to make the villains not seem generic in their skill sets. I feel like I managed it with Atsuo, but Satoshi will need next chapter to get fleshed out.
> 
> Anyway, I really enjoyed writing these scenes, and hope I didn't scare you off with my less than stellar action sequences! Please let me know!
> 
> (P.S: I will be attempting to do NaNoWriMo again this year, but will be focusing on original fiction for it. I'll probably need a break from it at some point during the month and bang out chapter 7, but don't get worried if you don't see an update through November.)
> 
> (P.P.S: Some more people questioned the pairing, and have said they don't want to get too attached just in case they hate who I have Naruto with. For the record, it is still down to a choice between two, but I am leaning heavily in favor of one. After the next chapter or two, I will have written enough to know where the story wants me to go, so expect your question to be answered in the A/N of Chapter 7 or 8)
> 
> Justu List (Ordered by appearance):
> 
> Katon: Hibashiri (Fire Release: Running Fire)  
> B-rank - Offensive - Ninjutsu  
> User creates a stream of fire that's form and instensity can be changed by the user mid-technique.
> 
> Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire)  
> C-rank – Offensive - Ninjutsu  
> User creates a small volley of fireballs, controlled by chakra, and launches them at their opponent. Not an overly-strong technique, but it is used to force space between the user and their opponent.
> 
> Suiton: Muzo no Shuriken (Water Release: Water Shuriken)  
> D-rank - Offensive - Ninjutsu  
> User uses water elemental chakra to form water shaped in the form of a shuriken and hurls it at the opponent.
> 
> Katon: Gōkyakyū no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu)  
> C-Rank - Offensive - Ninjutsu  
> User converts their chakra to fire and releases it from their mouth as a large burning orb capable of burning through anything in its path.
> 
> Suiton: Daibakufu no Jutsu (Water Release: Great Waterfall Technique)  
> A-rank - Offensive - Ninjutsu  
> User must be near a body of water. Creates a surge of water several meters high and sends it as a surge toward an enemy, resembling a waterfall. Can last as long as the user maintains concentration.
> 
> Doton: Nebari no Numa (Earth Release: Sticky Swamp)  
> C-Rank – Ninjutsu – Supplementary  
> User funnels their chakra in the ground around them, turning the land into a boggy swamp that will immobilize opponents. A sufficiently strong opponent can break away from the clinging earth.
> 
> Fūton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough)  
> C-Rank – Ninjutsu – Mid/Long Range  
> User creates a large, powerful gust of wind capable of leveling anything in its path.
> 
> Hiden: Rinpungakure no Jutsu (Secret Technique: Hiding in Scale Powder)  
> B-Rank - Supplementary - Ninjutsu  
> Fu uses her biju's chakra to form a luminescent powder, and ejects it out of her lungs. The powder reflects and intensifies any and all light as well as gets into the eyes of the opponent, blinding them for a short time.
> 
> (Do you guys like the Jutsu list, or is it unnecessary and take up too much space?)


	7. Leaves in the Waterfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor do I profit from this work. I'm merely using it as an exercise to improve my writing and for my own and others enjoyment.
> 
> A/N: Hey everyone and welcome back to Team Rin! I'm sorry I didn't update at all during November, but I took the month to attempt NaNoWriMo. Said attempt was…less than successful, but I still got a good chunk of my first novel started. That said, I was more than happy to return to fanfiction once we clicked over to December.
> 
> More notes after the chapter, please enjoy!

 

* * *

**Team Rin**

**Chapter 7**

**Leaves in the Waterfall**

* * *

Natsuko felt a deep nauseousness settle in her stomach at the sight before her and slammed her eyes shut to block it out. The feeling redoubled as the sickly energy attacked her senses. She let out a low moan and clutched at her head with her good hand, for the first time wishing away her innate ability to feel chakra. Normally she would have to use a jutsu to focus her capabilities, but now…

After Rin-sensei collapsed, Naruto had succumbed to a chakra filled with such viscous anger, rage, and _hate_ that she could not believe he was the boy she had come to know. She desperately wished that it was the worst chakra she had ever experienced, but whatever was happening to their opponent was downright _wrong_.

Her temples pounded, and she fought to regain her wits. She knew the rest of her family could push away their sensing abilities and focus on the present, but it was so overwhelming that Natsuko thought she was drowning in it. Her hand gripped her forehead tighter as Naruto's chakra flared once more, and Natsuko felt wetness slip down her cheeks.

"Make it stop…" She pleaded with a whimper, falling to her side.

"Natsuko?" The voice barely penetrated the turbulence in her mind. "Are you alright? Natsuko!" Lifting her eyelids in that moment was the hardest thing Natsuko had ever done. She made out orange eyes and green hair, recognizing Fū standing above her. A crimson aura was forming around the girl. It felt so similar to Naruto's, but there was nowhere near the amount of negative emotions with it.

Natsuko latched onto the new sense, focusing on it entirely, and the terrible pressure lessened. Her breathing was ragged, tears streamed down her cheeks, but she could think again. She swiped the wetness away from her face and stood on shaky feet. Fū offered a hand to steady her, and Natsuko took it with a grateful sigh. She turned her attention to the fight, and paled at what she saw.

 _Ayano_ , who had never once really tried to improve her taijutsu, was attacking the snake man with all her might with a full frontal assault. Steel glinted in the light as Ayano spun and tried to slash at the enemy jōnin, but the monster dodged everything with a manic grin on his reptilian face.

As stunning as that was; Naruto chose that moment to let out a deafening roar. Natsuko jerked her head in his direction and let out a sharp gasp. Wild, crimson chakra was flaring around the blonde boy, and he was clutching his head in pain. His jaw was taut around gritted teeth, and Natsuko was perturbed to notice his canines were growing longer, and, instead of the three whisker-like birthmarks on each cheek, there at least a dozen per cheek split into three sections. What the hell was going on?

"N-Naruto?" She called out to him. She hated that she stuttered in fear of her own teammate. "Can you hear me?" His eyes snapped open and focused on her, eyes no longer cheerful and blue, but now savage and red with slit pupils. For a brief moment, all of that anger and hatred she had sensed before threatened to overwhelm her once again.

The moment broke, and Naruto turned away from her and Fū, roaring as he charged Satoshi. Ayano had no warning and was roughly tossed aside as Naruto came up behind her. The girl yelped in shock as she flew through the air, but was silenced as she landed in the lake.

"He's…he's one too?" Fū asked, her voice barely a whisper. There was such hope and caution in that question that it seemed surreal in that moment when Naruto was brutal in his attacks against Satoshi.

"He's what?" She asked, turning to the green-haired girl. Fū's chakra cloak was starting to flicker, and she was staring at Naruto with a mixture of awe and disbelief. Fū did not seem to hear her, her face scrunching up like she was having an internal debate. The red aura around her flickered again, then died.

As soon as it did, Natsuko was bombarded by the sickly, demonic chakra once more. She moaned, clutched her head, and sank to the ground again. Tears of pain and frustration leaked from the corner of her eyes as the sensations overwhelmed her. In that moment, Natsuko felt more helpless than she ever had before.

When the darkness crept on the edges of her mind, she greeted it with open arms, and fell into sweet nothingness

* * *

Red. All he could see was red. Pure, hot, mesmerizing fury bubbled through him, begging to be released. With his heart pounding against his chest at an incredible pace, Naruto felt something _shift_. His vision narrowed and his attention snapped toward the sound of battle. The bastard who attacked Rin-sensei was already fighting someone, but Naruto only saw his target.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" Naruto bellowed in a deepened voice. He charged, surprised himself with his own speed, and _swiped_ the first ninja out of the way. The person was sent sprawling out onto the lake, but Naruto had eyes only for Satoshi.

He slashed at his target, and the chakra around his hands formed into claws that seared the air around them. The man dodged around his strikes, and Naruto growled in increasing fury. More chakra pumped through his system the angrier he became, and his attacks sped up with each passing second.

One of his slashes finally caught the bastard across the stomach, leaving a trail of blackened scales in its wake. Satoshi leapt back, and a mud wall rose between them. Naruto ran straight at it, and his cloak burned through it as fast as a kunai pierced paper. Satoshi was gripping his injured stomach with a grimace, a promise of murder alight in his eyes. Naruto growled. The pain was not enough.

He wanted to hurt the bastard; to see him bleed; to watch him _die_.

"What the hell _are_ you?!" Satoshi spat out, his voice a hiss. Naruto answered with a roaring charge. The enemy ninja lobbed shuriken at him, but Naruto ignored them and sprinted forward. If any of them struck him, he did not notice.

Chakra claws met scaled fists in a blur of motion as the two engaged, and Naruto took sadistic glee in seeing the man's skin sizzle with each point of contact. Despite the pain that must have caused, Naruto was still unable to get inside Satoshi's guard. Naruto growled and lunged with all his might, but the man spun and Naruto's strike flew wide. Something hit his back, and Naruto was sent sprawling through the air.

He hit the dirt and rolled back to his feet to see Satoshi grinning and forming a long series of hand seals. Frustration bubbled in his stomach and Naruto tried to force something _more_ out of his system. The red chakra surged to his call, and Naruto felt a fresh wave of anger and bloodlust hit him.

" **Hiden: Doku no Kobura**!" Satoshi breathed in deep, but Naruto was already in motion. He reared back a hand, intent on taking off the snake man's head. As his chakra laced arm flew forward, Satoshi spat out a stream of thick, steaming, purple liquid. Naruto had no time to dodge and the technique caught him full in the face, chest, and arms.

It _burned_ and Naruto screamed, clawing the offending acid away from his skin. He was distracted a moment later when Satoshi went on the offensive, hitting him in the chest and kicking him in the chin in a quick combo that sent Naruto flying back.

He landed with a haggard gasp, and panicked when he could not take a breath. He took a hesitant glance down, and found a small, metal circle sticking out of his chest. He sucked in an instinctive shocked breath, but only managed to give himself a coughing fit. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth, and Naruto gripped the kunai with a grimace, and _yanked_.

The pain was intense, but short-lived, and Naruto watched in morbid fascination as chakra poured from the wound, rather than blood. In a matter of seconds, the wound closed up. He took an experimental inhale, and grinned when he breathed normally. He gazed at his chakra covered hands with a wicked grin.

" **Hiden: Doku no Kobura**!"Naruto's attention snapped back to focus, and he snarled at the sight of Satoshi attacking an exhausted Fū. With renewed energy, Naruto leapt at his target before he could spit his poison. Satoshi did not see him coming, and Naruto landed a solid kick to the side of Satoshi's head, sending him staggering backward. The purple poison spewed off target, charring the ground where it landed.

"Wh-which one do you have?" Fū asked, but Naruto ignored her. He stalked toward a wide eyed Satoshi.

"There's no way you survived that!" He shouted with a snarl. Naruto smirked and attacked. The bastard did not let Naruto get anywhere close to him as he smacked his palms against the ground, and spiked pillars of stone jutted from the ground under Naruto's feet. The jinchūriki narrowly avoided being skewered, and slid around the technique.

Satoshi shouted and more purple chakra flared around his hands, and more spikes rose from the ground between him and Naruto. The blonde surged forward, smashing through the rock with his chakra claws as the space between the rocks shrank. He was less than a meter away from Satoshi when the man grinned and clapped his hands together. Naruto was stopped in his tracks as the stone around him fused, trapping him from the neck down.

Satoshi made a single hand seal with a gleam in his eye. "Die!" Naruto felt immediate pressure against every part of his body. His chakra was pushing back, but it was not enough. That realization sparked the first real fear since the red chakra had taken over, and Naruto panicked.

"No!" He shouted at his enemy. Satoshi only laughed, and fresh, desperate rage flared inside Naruto. He would see this man _dead_. With a guttural snarl, Naruto pulled at the depths of his red chakra, and _pushed_.

Satoshi's laughter died on his lips when the stone prison groaned in protest, then exploded outwards. The man shielded his face behind crossed arms as the sharp rock flew in every direction. Naruto jumped at his chance, ignoring the variety of slashes and scrapes the exploding rock had given him. He lashed out against Satoshi's exposed stomach with clawed chakra, and _dug_. Satoshi kicked him away, but Naruto took two handfuls of flesh with him.

Naruto licked his lips and watched with growing amusement as Satoshi clung to his ravaged midsection. Thick, crimson blood leaked over his arms, and Naruto could smell death in the air. He laughed.

Then Satoshi's purple chakra pooled around the wounds, and Naruto could only watch in frustration as fresh skin and scales grew over the injuries. He balled his fists with a growl, ignoring the _squelch_ of Satoshi's innards he still held. He locked eyes with the jōnin, who had a snarl firmly in place. There was no more amusement in his eyes, and Naruto took a small amount of satisfaction from that, but it was not enough.

In a blur of crimson and violet chakra, the two rushed toward each other again.

* * *

Ayano could only watch in helpless horror as the _thing_ Naruto had become charged Satoshi once more. It was impossible for her to reconcile the savage animalistic behavior with her goofy and cheerful teammate, but there was no denying it was him beneath the crimson chakra.

She spared a glance toward Fū, who had her eyes fixed on Naruto without flinching Fū had had a similar cloak to Naruto's, only she had not become… _that_. Ayano desperately wanted to ask, but Fū looked pale and clammy, and Ayano knew that she had to be exhausted from both the fights and her injuries. So she would hold her questions for later.

If they survived this.

She flinched away from the sound of Naruto roaring again, and shifted her attention to the rest of Team Twelve lying unconscious on the ground. She bit back a yelp as the movement caused her back to flare up in pain, and tried not to think about how bad the burn must be.

Her gaze drifted over Rin-sensei, and took little comfort in the shallow rise and fall of the woman's chest. She lowered her ear to her sensei's chest while placing two gentle fingers on the woman's neck to check her heartbeat. Heat rose to her cheeks at the small amount of contact, but Ayano pushed her feelings away and forced herself to focus.

Sensei's heartbeat was fast. _Scary_ fast. Her shallow breaths were ragged, and her skin was cool to the touch. Ayano sat back up, and studied the cut on Sensei's neck, and her stomach dropped to see the skin around was a bright, angry red.

She had no idea what any of that meant.

Frustration and panic welled up inside of her, and she cursed herself for not studying Sensei's scrolls more thoroughly. If she had, then maybe she could have found something, then Sensei could take care of the enemy and—

"Ungh…" The sound was little more than a pained moan, and Ayano's attention snapped back to the present and onto her teammate. She had no idea how Natsuko had fallen unconscious in the first place, having found no obvious injuries.

"Natsuko? Hey, can you hear me?" She kept her voice to a whisper, feeling the need to not risk drawing any attention to their group. She heard footsteps behind her, but a quick glance showed it was only Fū. She focused back on her teammate, and Natsuko's eyes squinted open for a quick second before she slammed them shut with a whimper.

"Ayano? Hurts." The amount of strain in her teammate's voice left Ayano in little doubt that whatever was hurting Natsuko had to be crippling. She grasped her teammate's hand, offering whatever comfort she could.

"What does?" She prompted in a gentle tone. Natsuko's face scrunched up, but she lifted her hand out of Ayano's and tapped her temple.

"Chakra," she whispered, and then shivered. "Hurts." Chakra? What could chakra…

Ayano blinked, and looked between her two teammates with widened eyes as it clicked in her head. Whatever was causing Natsuko's reaction had to be related to her sensing abilities. Ayano frowned. If Naruto's and Satoshi's chakras gave _her_ a bad feeling, then a sensor would be experiencing it on an entirely different level.

Ayano wracked her brain for any solution, but her limited medical knowledge betrayed her once again. Natsuko moaned again and Ayano pressed hand to the brunette's forehead, finding it clammy and hot like she had a fever. Ayano grit her teeth and felt tears sting the back of her eyes as frustration threatened to overwhelm her. If only there was a way for Natsuko to stop sensing…

An idea sparked in the back of her mind, and Ayano leapt at the chance to try _something_. She reached up and held Natsuko's face in gentle hands so that the other girl would not be able to look away. Her eyes flickered open; the pupils huge with only a thin ring of grey separating them from the white of her eyes. Ayano tried to hold a smile, and hoped she looked reassuring.

"Focus on me, Natsuko." Ayano did not blink as she molded the little chakra she had left. Her soldier pill was wearing off fast, and without hand seals the chakra was stubborn in wanting to stay put. Slow as it was, it was still moving.

She kept her breathing slow and even. It kept the chakra at a constant rate for Natsuko to focus on, and, as the seconds ticked by, Natsuko's pupils began to contract and her breathing evened out.

"Block it all out," Ayano murmured. It was eerie to stare into someone's eyes for so long; she decided when she could notice the fog lifting as her teammate emerged from her daze. When Natsuko let out a soft sigh, Ayano knew it had worked. Gingerly, Natsuko sat up, displacing Ayano's hands.

"Is it over?" She asked. Ayano shook her head and pointed to the rolling mass of red and purple that was Naruto and Satoshi. Natsuko glanced at the duo, then immediately slammed her eyes shut. Ayano put a hand on her shoulder, ready to catch her, but Natsuko waved her off.

"Do we have _any_ idea what's going on?" The brunette asked through gritted teeth.

"You mean you two don't know?" Fū spoke up. Ayano blinked in surprise, having forgotten the Taki girl was there.

"Know what?" Natsuko asked. A howl of pain interrupted Fū before she could answer. Naruto had broken away from Satoshi, and the red chakra was starting to flicker. The blond was bleeding from a slash across the chest that looked to have cut through clothes, armor, and flesh alike.

"It doesn't matter right now," Ayano declared, resolute. She shifted her gaze toward the village hundreds of meters away. "Do you think anyone from the village will help?"

Fū shook her head. "Not without Shibuki's orders," she said with a derisive sniff.

"Then go convince him."

"What?" Fū looked at her like she had grown an extra head.

"We need to do _something_!" Ayano snapped at the girl. Fū flinched back, but nodded and took off at a sprint.

Ayano fell to her knees next to Sensei again, and brushed a stray lock of hair out of the woman's face with tender care. Natsuko fell into place beside her, and paled at the sight of their teacher. Sensei was still breathing, but it had grown shallower. Ayano was terrified that there would be no way to save her. Everything she had read said that poisons were arguably the deadliest shinobi tool simply because of the difficulty in finding an antidote.

She blinked, and a realization struck.

"Come on," she ordered her teammate, grabbing the girl and pulling her to her feet. If they could get the poison, then they could make an antidote. Somehow. Natsuko gave her a queer look at her sudden change in her demeanor. "We have to find that kunai." Natsuko's eyes widened in understanding, and she nodded.

Filled with a renewed sense of purpose, the two set of to scour the battlefield.

* * *

Naruto tumbled along the ground after being struck by a flying boulder to the face. He could already feel his chakra stitching flesh, bone, and sinew back together. He knew, with a cold sense of clarity, that the blow would have killed him if not for his chakra fixing the damage.

It was the tenth time that had happened.

He rolled back to his feet, the red aura flickering before surging back with renewed vigor. It was doing that more as the fight went on, and Naruto knew that he was getting close to his limit. He had to end this fight soon.

Unfortunately, Satoshi looked to be in much better shape than he was, and the bastard was still wearing his damned smirk. Naruto _really_ wanted to rip it right off the jōnin's face. But it did not matter how often Naruto managed to land a blow; the enemy ninja had kept control of the battle throughout.

"Still alive? I'm actually impressed." Satoshi taunted him. He tapped a finger against his chin and eyed Naruto up and down. "Orochimaru-sama might be interested in your rejuvenation kekkei genkai." Naruto bared his teeth in a snarl. Satoshi's smirked widened and he held up a single hand seal. "No more time for games, Brat!"

" **Hiden: Zenshin Mahi no Doku**!" An acrid yellow mist poured from Satoshi's mouth, creating a translucent fog. Naruto leapt back to avoid the technique, but it did not follow him. Instead, the poison mist swirled around Satoshi. At the center of the maelstrom, Satoshi held his hand seal with a wide grin.

"You wanted to kill me! Here's your chance!" The enemy ninja shouted out began to laugh. Naruto weighed his options. There was at least five meters of mist between him and Satoshi, and the jōnin was clearly expecting the mist to take him out.

But the poison could not hurt him if he did not breathe, and his chakra would just heal him anyway. With a grin of his own, Naruto charged. He reared back a claw and kept his mouth shut in a firm line. Satoshi's grin never faltered, but Naruto did not hesitate and lashed out at the jōnin's neck to end it once and for all.

Satoshi dropped his seal and caught Naruto's swinging arm. The mist did not stop swirling and Naruto realized he had been had. He could see smoke rising from Satoshi's hand as the red chakra burned him, but the bastard kept an iron grip that refused to budge. He swung a desperate swipe with his off hand, but the older ninja caught that one as well.

"You have to breath at some point. Wouldn't want to pass out would you?" Satoshi's tone was condescending and amused, filling Naruto to the brim with frustrated anger. He yanked, kicked, and even bit, but the bastard was immovable. Fire burned in Naruto's lungs as they cried desperately for air, and as darkness clouded the edge of his vision, he took a breath.

As soon as he did, Satoshi released him, and Naruto tried to attack. His body had other ideas, however, and Naruto collapsed to the ground. None of his limbs would respond no matter how hard he thought at them, and Naruto panicked as the red chakra faded away, taking the anger and hate with it. Without being able to move, and no power left in his system, Naruto had never felt more helpless.

It did not sit well with him.

Satoshi squatted down next to him and patted his shoulder, never losing his infuriating smirk. "Don't worry brat. This means you get to live an extra day!" Naruto tried to give a biting retort, but not even his jaw would move. Satoshi licked his lips, eyes alight with mirth. "This is my favorite poison," he muttered as the fog cleared, and went to lift Naruto up.

"D-d-drop him!" A man jumped in between Naruto and Satoshi, wielding a sword made out of nothing but water. The stuttering voice combined with the fact that he was trembling made Shibuki a less than threatening sight. Satoshi's hairless brows raised and a look of mild irritation crossed his face.

"I'm honestly surprised, Shibuki. I did not expect betrayal so soon." His annoyance turned to glee as a savage light glowed in his yellowed eyes. "You know what this means?"

"Of course I do." Shibuki had deepened his voice, but whatever effect he was going for was lost as he rushed his words. "Takigakure will not betray its alliances so easily!" A chorus of cheers sounded behind Naruto, and he guessed that more ninja had joined the fight.

 _About damn time…_ he thought with a mental glare at the Waterfall ninja. This was entirely their fault in the first place. If not for them, then Rin-sensei would not be... Tears welled up in his eyes as realization of everything that had happened in the past hour hit him, and Naruto wanted nothing more than to _scream_.

More Taki jōnin landed on the battlefield and surrounded Satoshi, but the man only looked bored. His purple chakra receded, taking the creepy snake appearance with it. He crossed his arms and tapped his foot, waiting for Shibuki to make a move.

"Orochimaru-sama has a long memory," the man warned.

"Attack!" Shibuki ordered, not bothering to replay. Each of the Taki ninja launched a high pressure water technique at Satoshi, who did not even move. The streams combined into a maelstrom that Naruto was sure would rip anything to shreds. When the techniques ended, though, Satoshi was gone. A soaked, shredded log was left where he had stood.

"Shit…" Shibuki muttered, before turning to Naruto. Anxiousness and fear shined in the leader's eyes, but Naruto could not muster any bit of sympathy. The teenager bent down and picked Naruto up, and the blond could do nothing to protest. "I really am sorry about this," Shibuki whispered. "I didn't have a choice, and nobody was supposed to be hurt." His tone turned wry. "Of course, I never believed that, but there was nothing left to do."

Naruto wanted to shout at the man, and force him to realize that there was _always_ the option to fight back. That only cowards gave up when the odds were stacked against them, and cowards did not deserve to lead a village.

Instead, he was forced to lie helplessly as Shibuki used him as a soundboard. "I'm ashamed to say that it took the words of a child to get me to make a choice." Shibuki shifted Naruto so that he was facing toward the lake. Fū, Ayano, and Natsuko were standing in a semicircle around Sensei while a medic ninja held a glowing green hand to Rin-sensei's neck. Naruto's heart skipped a beat. If a medic ninja was bothering to try something, it meant that Sensei was alive!

"You should thank Fū," Shibuki said. The green haired girl looked up at the mention of her name, glaring at Shibuki. Naruto felt the man shiver. She shifted her gaze to Naruto, and he saw something like glee in her eye. That was odd. "She convinced us to make a stand. Of course, this puts Takigakure in a bad situation, and I hope Konoha will see fit to send aid…" Yes, Naruto decided, he _really_ wanted to hit Shibuki.

The leader set him down, and Naruto's focus snapped onto his unconscious teacher as the med-nin raised herself out of her squat with a sigh. "She should be fine after a day of rest." Relief flooded through Naruto's system, and he could see his teammates almost collapse as the stress melted off their shoulders. "You were lucky to find that kunai," the med-nin told the girls. "Chakra draining poisons are extremely deadly, and if I hadn't known what to look for…"

Naruto did not want to entertain that possibility again.

"Shibuki-sama," the woman said to her leader. "Where should we…" Naruto tuned her out as his weariness caught up with him all at once. His eyes drifted closed, and the world swam away.

* * *

He groaned and rolled over, snuggling deeper into the warmth the blanket and futon offered. As he was about to fall back into oblivion, his mind wandered to earlier in the day, and Naruto sat up, eyes wide and heart racing. He was no longer by the lake in Takigakure. Instead, he was occupying the sole piece of furniture in a small room.

The room was painted cream with a detailed mural of the giant tree of Takigakure stretching along the walls. Other than that, the room's only distinguishing feature was the futon he had been sleeping on.

"Where am I?"He asked aloud, then grinned when the fact that he could move again sank in. He leapt up from the futon and did a few experimental jabs and kicks. Everything was a bit sluggish, but he was not stuck anymore!

"Shibuki's house." Naruto let out a _totally manly_ high pitched yelp and spun around. He tripped on his blanket and landed on his rear, much to the amusement of the girl kneeling on the floor.

"Uh. Hi." Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head and feeling utterly lame. Fū gave him a half smile.

"Hi." The moment passed. "So…" Fū trailed off and shifted her gaze toward the mural.

"So?" Naruto prompted. Fū turned back to him, a frown on her face and a hardened glint in her eye.

"Why didn't you tell me you were a jinchūriki?" Naruto sucked in a sharp, panicked breath. How had she…? Memories of his brawl with Satoshi flooded his mind, and the source of his sudden power clicked in Naruto's head.

"I used the Kyūbi's power…" His stomach churned at the realization. Fractions of thoughts and feelings from when he used the chakra threatened to overwhelm him, but he pushed that away to focus on the bigger issue.

If Fū had figured it out, then did Ayano and Natsuko do so too? The thought of his teammates treating him with disdain and fear like many of the other villagers scared Naruto to his core. Random villagers he could deal with, but to get that reaction from people he cared about…

"The Kyūbi? You have the Nine Tails inside you?" Fū tilted her head to the side, as if straining to hear something. "Chōmei is not a fan…" She muttered with a faint blush on her cheeks.

"How did you know?" Naruto asked her. He brought his knees to his chest and rested his head on them, hoping the nausea would pass. She looked at him like he was an idiot.

"Your chakra. It was the same as mine." Naruto blinked once, then twice, and the meaning behind her words sank in. He lifted his head and looked at her with wide eyes.

He pointed at her in shocked realization. "You're a jinchūriki too!" Fū opened and closed her mouth a few times, but no sound came out.

"You didn't know," she said after a few moments, pressing a palm against her forehead, which pushed her green locks out of her face. "You never used your powers before, did you?"

"I didn't even know we _had_ powers…" Naruto said with a frown. He wondered if the old man or Sensei knew about this.

"Chōmei says that the Kyūbi is very stingy with giving out his chakra." She narrowed her eyes. "This coming from the cheapest beetle I know…" Naruto quirked a brow at her words. It was like listening in on half a conversation.

"Who's Chōmei?"

"He's the Nanabi; the bijū sealed inside me."

"It has a name?"

"Of course he does." She frowned. "Everything has a name, right?"

"I guess." Naruto leaned back on his elbows and gazed at the ceiling. "I wonder what the Kyūbi's name is."

"Dunno," Fū said after a moment. "And Chōmei says it isn't his place to tell."

"So the Nanabi can hear us right now?" Fū nodded. "That's kind of cool, I guess."

"I guess," Fū said with a shrug.

"Are you... friends with it?" Fū cocked her head to the side with a frown, and then shivered.

"Kind of? Chōmei says I'm basically like his…pet." Fū's face scrunched up in annoyance, and Naruto felt uncomfortable at the implication. "But he's the only one that's always been there, you know? Before I talked to him for the first time, I was all alone."

"I do know." Naruto thought back to before the academy. Before he drew attention to himself with his pranks and loud nature, he had always been simply ignored. Nobody would acknowledge him if they could help it, and they would be short with him whenever he asked questions. He had been like a ghost, unseen and forgotten.

Fū let out a hollow laugh. "You've got an entire team…"

"Not always," Naruto countered. "It took a long time to get people to acknowledge me, and a lot of people still don't. But the ones that have are precious to me, and I wouldn't trade them for the world." He grinned. "Besides, you're one of them now!" Fū's eyes widened for a moment before she turned away and wiped at her eyes. Naruto thought it would be best to draw attention to it.

"Was it worth all the…scorn?" She still had her back to him.

"Definitely," he said with conviction. She turned back to him, orange eyes bright with determination. It was a look he had not seen from her before, and Naruto thought it suited her really well.

"Thank you," she said, and Naruto could almost _feel_ the relief behind her tone. The moment was broken a few seconds later by a loud crash from another room.

"Nohara-san, you need to stay in bed!"

"Take me to my students or get the _hell_ out of my way!" Naruto's eyes widened and he bolted to his feet. Sensei was awake!

He was out the door in a flash.

Rin-sensei was glaring down a team of ninja who looked like they wanted to be anywhere but in front of his teacher. She looked pale, and her ninja gear was nowhere to be seen, but otherwise looked to be alright.

"Sensei!" Her head snapped in his direction, and her entire body sagged in relief. Sensei shouldered through the Taki ninja and strode over to him before taking him up in a bear hug. She was holding him so tightly that he could barely breathe.

"Thank Kami you're alright," she breathed out and released him. She studied him up and down with a critical eye and gave a small nod. "I shouldn't be so surprised you don't look hurt." She said with an amused glint in her eye. It vanished a moment later when intense worry crept back onto her features. "Where are your teammates?"

"I-" Another door slid open, and both Ayano and Natsuko stepped into the room. Natsuko's arm was casted up and hung in a sling, and she had a slight limp, but otherwise looked fine. Ayano wore no shirt, and instead, her entire chest and torso was covered in bandages that seemed thicker along her back. He frowned, not remembering when the redhead had gotten hurt.

Sensei was over with them in the blink of an eye, and was hugging them to her chest with all her might. Naruto, with Fū trailing behind, made it across the room just as Sensei released the girls. Natsuko looked befuddled and cradled her closer to her chest, but her lips were turned up in a small grin. Ayano had a bright grin and brighter blush, and Naruto was sure he'd never seen her look so happy.

"I'm so glad you four are okay," Sensei said, sparing a small smile to an uncomfortable Fū. "And I know you're all very tired, but I need to know _exactly_ what happened after I was knocked out." Both Ayano and Natsuko looked at Naruto as if just realizing he was there, and both had hesitation and a bit of fear in their eyes. His cold fear returned like ice water through his veins.

"We already informed you of everything Nohara-san," one of the Taki ninja said with an impatient note in her voice. "And now that you can see that your students are fine, like we told you, you _need_ to return to your bed?" Rin-sensei clicked her tongue and her face hardened. She turned to the medical ninja with a glare that sent shivers down Naruto's spine.

"I _need_ you to go and get Shibuki while I listen to my _genin_ students tell me how they had to fight a hostile _jōnin_ without only one supporting ninja who was also just a genin." Rin-sensei's voice could make stone tremble, and the pale medical ninja rushed to obey. "And get our equipment as well!" She barked the order to the remaining team of Taki nin, who all ran out of the room

"Now," she turned back to them and her features softened. "How did you manage to beat Satoshi?" They were all silent for a minute before Ayano's hesitant voice began to explain…

* * *

"I see," Rin let out a long sigh and sank into a nearby couch as her genin's words sank in. Naruto looked downcast and angry at himself, Fū was stoic, and both Ayano and Natsuko simply looked cautious and tired. It was all a lot to process, but the overwhelming sensation from it all was shame. "I'm sorry." She locked eyes with each of her students and Fū in turn. "So, so sorry."

"Sensei?" Naruto questioned with his eyes full of worry. Rin felt a rush of compassion for the sweet, caring boy, followed immediately by a sense of anxious anticipation. How was she going to explain his status to the other two after they had experienced the unbridled killing intent of the Kyūbi? Both girls' guarded body language did not escape her.

"None of you should have been put in that situation." She gave an emphatic look to each of the four genin in turn to drive her point home. "We're all very lucky to be alive."

"I would do it again, dattebayo!" Naruto said, punching one hand with the other. "Anything to save a friend." The determination in his voice was palpable.

"Same here," Ayano's voice was more hesitant and she gave Naruto a wary look, but her conviction was there.

"As if it were a question," Natsuko said after a moment, her voice quiet and eyes downcast. Still, Rin could hear the seriousness in her claim. Fū was staring at the three of them with a slack jaw and watery eyes, and Rin smiled. She knew that Konoha's mindset was unique in the shinobi world, and it always pleased her to see it spread outside of the village. Even if was only one person.

"I know you would," she told them. "That's why I'm going to be damned sure you three will be ready to face _anything_ that comes your way." Her students looked at her with varying degrees of surprise and excitement on their faces. "Our training is going to get a _lot_ harder when we get back to the village. Think you all can handle that?"

The three glanced at each other, and nodded enthusiastically. Rin was happy to note that the awkward air seemed to have disappeared between the three. If only for a moment.

"Good," she said with a nod. She closed her eyes and sank further into the couch cushions. If she could not trust C-ranks to stay C-rank, then she would have to have her genin ready to handle B-ranks or higher. She began to craft hypothetical training plans for the three of them, and wondered if they would be able to handle the pace.

"Nohara-san! Good to see you up and around!" The four genin, who had started to whisper to each other, fell silent at Shibuki's amicable voice. Rin's eyes snapped open and she pulled herself to her full height. She set her jaw in a firm line, and turned to glower at the teenage leader.

Shibuki's cheerful expression dropped when they met eyes, and his adams apple moved up and down in a gulp of fear. Rin may have felt bad, but she was not in a mood to forgive the cowardly leader, despite his apparent help at the end. If he had stood his ground and called for aid, none of them would have been in that situation to begin with.

He waved a hand, and the two chūnin that were flanking him brought her team's supplies forward and set them on the ground in front of the genin, who immediately began to rifle through it. The two chūnin bowed, and left in a rush. Satoshi opened his mouth to speak, but Rin interrupted him before he could begin.

"Take me to Motoike Atsuo." She kept her tone calm, but clipped. As much as she wanted to rip into the man, Sarutobi-sama would frown on her causing another international incident.

Shibuki paled. "Er, well…I can't do that." Rin raised a single brow. Of all the things to challenge her on…

"He is a traitor to the Leaf, and will be brought back to Konoha to face charges. You have no right to refuse me custody." Shibuki rubbed the back of his neck, and everything about his body language shouted that he wanted to be anywhere but there.

"It's not that. You see, he's, well, dead." Rin blinked in surprise.

"Dead?" It was Naruto who spoke up, and his voice had gone up a couple of notches. She spared him a glance to see that he had gone pale as well. "We didn't hit him _that_ hard!" He shared a look with Fū, who only shrugged.

"No you didn't." Shibuki shook his head, his long hair swaying behind him, and sighed. "When he regained consciousness and realized he had been captured, well…" Rin pinched the bridge of her nose. Were they really this incompetent?

"You had a known, traitorous ninja in custody, you knew exactly who his master was, and you _let him commit suicide_!?" Her voice had lowered to a forceful whisper and she advanced on Shibuki, coming nose to nose with the shorter ninja. He backed away, panic lighting up in his dark eyes.

"He had a poisoned capsule in one of his teeth!" He defended himself and Rin scoffed. Even rookies in the Interrogation and Torture Department knew to look for that.

"I want his body sealed, and brought to me. Understand?" Her nose scrunched in disdain at how Shibuki flinched, but she forced her anger back. He turned to go fulfill her request, but she grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him back to face her. He whimpered and closed his eyes as if expecting a blow, and she shook her head.

"But first," she said, dropping him. He opened a single eye before blushing and straightening up. "You need to tell me everything about your deal with Orochimaru."

"There is nothing to tell!" He claimed, backing away from her. "He sent that _monster_ here with a message. Give him a sample of the Hero's Water, and be ready to make a move against Konoha when he called. He said that he would come and destroy the village himself if we didn't comply. You _know_ how strong he is. Even with the water, nobody here could take him on." Shibuki's voice had grown desperate at the end, and there were unshed tears in his eyes. "I had no choice!"

He was pleading with her, she realized. Practically begging her to absolve him of his guilt and wrongdoings. She shook her head, not willing to give him a break.

"You could have sent for aid." She kept her tone dead even, and Shibuki's entire demeanor deflated.

"I made the right choice in the end…" It was the last argument he had, and they both knew how weak it was.

"Only because one of your genin proved to have more wisdom than you." Shibuki flinched, and Rin knew the fight had gone out of him. "Now, I need _details_."

"I don't know any, I swear! Satoshi just said that I would know what I needed to know, _when_ I needed to know. That's it." Rin sighed, her gut telling her the coward was telling the truth.

"Hokage-sama will no doubt forgive Takigakure because of your change of heart, Shibuki." He perked up at that, a small glimmer of hope in his eyes. "But there will be consequences, and a price to be paid." He nodded, and stood back to his full height.

"But remember Shibuki, _I_ will not forget. You can be sure of that." She let that sink in for a moment. "Now go bring me the traitor." Shibuki fled the room without further comment.

As soon as he was gone, Rin sighed. She wanted nothing more than to get back to Konoha, and _away_ from this entire mess. She faced the genin, amused to see that they were all looking at her with wide eyes. None of them had seen negotiations at work before, she assumed.

"Naruto, Ayano, Natsuko. You three gather your things and meet me outside. We're leaving this place as soon as possible." The trio nodded and hastened to obey her without complaint. The benefits of seeing her giving someone a verbal lashing, she mused. "Fū, stay a moment." The green haired girl had been about to follow the other three out, but stopped and stood rigid. Her students paused at the door, looking unsure, but one look from her had them bustling to leave the room.

"Y-yes?" The genin was facing away from her and every muscle in the girl's body was tense.

"I wanted to say thank you." Fū relaxed and turned around, a look of surprise in her orange eyes.

"What for?"

"You had the courage to do what the rest of your village did not. Without you, we probably would have never known about Orochimaru planning something against Konoha. You saved a lot of lives today." Fū gave a sheepish smile at the praise.

"In fact, because of everything you did, as well as some things I've noticed about your village, I have an offer for you." Curious orange eyes met hers. "I am going to make sure that the Hokage knows everything about your involvement today, and I know he'll agree to this if you want."

"Agree to what?"

"Come back to Konoha with us." Fū's eyes grew to the size of saucers. "He will offer asylum, and we can give you a good place to belong." Silence fell between them, and, for a long while, Fū stared down at her feet with her head turned slightly to the right.

"Naruto said that things weren't always easy for him in Konoha," Fū said at length.

"They weren't," Rin agreed, seeing no reason to lie. Naruto had been a loner from a young age, and a troublemaker as he grew older. Both she and Kakashi had been far too young to take in a child themselves, and the years just slipped away…

"But he also said it got better when he found people to care about." Fū took a deep breath, and raised her head to meet Rin's eyes. Determination, so familiar to Rin when looking into the eyes of any Konoha ninja, was burning in the girl's orange orbs. "I want to try and do that here. Despite everything, Taki is my home, and I…I think I can make it better."

Rin gave the girl an encouraging smile. "If anyone can, I know it will be you, Fū. Just remember, there will always be a place for you in Konoha. Don't ever hesitate to come to us for help." Fū nodded, and Rin was satisfied. "Now, I'm sure there are three genins listening at the door who are anxious to say goodbye…" There were muffled thuds from outside, and Rin chuckled, leading Fū to the rest of the children.

* * *

Natsuko sat shoulder to shoulder with Ayano on a log around their campfire. The other girl was the only one keeping her from keeling over, and she suspected the same could be said for the redhead, whose head kept drooping every few seconds.

Rin-sensei had set a breakneck pace as soon as they left Takigakure and made their goodbyes to Fū, but they had only managed to travel for two hours before their injuries caught up with them. The only one who was not even winded was Naruto, who sat across from her with his cerulean eyes locked on the ground.

Natsuko frowned, unsure how to feel about the blond. Even just thinking about the chakra from earlier made her flinch. Yet, Naruto had been mostly normal ever since he woke up, and Sensei did not see concerned. She had obviously known what had happened when Ayano told her about the fight, but Sensei did not _explain_ , which left Natsuko both curious and apprehensive.

"Naruto." Sensei spoke up, breaking the silence that had fallen for the past few hours. "I think you should tell them." Natsuko felt Ayano sit at attention, and she sat up straighter as well.

"I…" Naruto's entire demeanor was somber.

"You knew you would have to eventually." Sensei's tone was gentle, but forceful. "It would be better to come from you."

"Is this about earlier?" Ayano asked, rolling her shoulders with a cringing wince. Natsuko had seen the burns, and was amazed her teammate could move at all…

Naruto looked guilt stricken. "I'm so sorry about that, Ayano! I wasn't…"

"What _was_ that, Naruto? A kekkei genkai?" Ayano's tone was neutral, but Natsuko spotted the hesitance in the redhead's green eyes.

"I…"

"That chakra was _awful_ ," Natsuko said with a shiver. "You weren't _you_ anymore, Naruto. You were only hate. Hate and rage."

"That's because it wasn't me." Naruto declared. Natsuko scrunched up her face in thought, but nothing made sense.

"Naruto…" Sensei warned, and Naruto sighed.

"Well, it was, but it wasn't!"

"That doesn't make any sense, Naruto." Ayano was rubbing her temples as if to stave off a headache. "Just start at the beginning. Where did that power come from?" A long moment of silence stretched between them, and Naruto opened and closed his mouth several times before finally speaking.

"The Kyūbi." Natsuko blinked. That made even _less_ sense, if that were possible.

"How could the power have been from the Kyūbi when it's dead?" Natsuko asked, and Naruto hung his head.

"You know that the Kyūbi attacked the village thirteen years ago…"

"Everyone knows that," Natsuko said.

"It's one of the first lessons at the academy. Yondaime-sama sacrificed himself to kill it." Ayano added, frowning.

"That's not what happened." Naruto's voice was a hoarse whisper, and he took a deep breath. "The Kyūbi can't actually die, so the Yondaime had to seal it away. The only way to seal a bijū is by sealing it into a person" He ran a hand through his hair and still would not meet their eyes. "The old man explained it better…"

"So…" Ayano said after a few moments of silence. A glance told Natsuko that the redhead had put the pieces together and she frowned in frustration. What was she missing? "The Yondaime sealed it into _you_?" Natsuko's hand shot to her mouth and she let out an audible gasp as the everything came together.

"That's _awful_!" She shouted, and Naruto flinched away as if struck. "Not _you_ Naruto," she backpedaled. "You couldn't have been more than a few months old! It's just not right to put a monster inside of a baby."

"I agree," Ayano nodded with a sigh.

"The Yondaime had his reasons, and if there were any other option, I'm sure he would have taken it," Sensei said with an uncomfortable grimace. Natsuko suspected she knew more, but felt it was not the time to ask. "Naruto is a jinchūriki, which is the term for shinobi with tailed beasts sealed within them. I want to be clear that Naruto is _not_ the Kyūbi."

"I understand," Natsuko said, and she did. Everything she had ever learned about the Kyūbi matched up with the chakra that had knocked her out earlier. Naruto started to smile, and Natsuko could not help but to smile back at the blond. He was supposed to be the cheerful idiot, and depression just did not suit him.

"Fū is one too, isn't she?" Ayano asked, and Naruto's smile dropped. Natsuko turned to the girl next to her with a creased brow. The redhead was still stoic and staring at Naruto. "She had a crimson aura too." Natsuko tried to remember the feeling of Fū's chakra, but could be barely remember it. It had been _similar_ , she thought, but there was nowhere near the amount of negative emotions etched into it.

"Yes," Naruto said, staring apprehensively at Ayano.

The redhead nodded slowly. "If she could control it, then you can learn to as well." Naruto looked to object, but Ayano continued before he could. "I forgive you," Ayano said with a smile. "But you have to _promise_ that you'll learn to control it so this won't happen again." She pointed to her bandages, and Naruto gave her a solemn nod.

"I promise, Ayano." Natsuko had never seen or heard Naruto be more serious than he was at that moment. Ayano nodded, looking satisfied.

"We should get some rest," Sensei said after a few moments of silence. "I want to make it to Konoha tomorrow, so we'll leave at first light." In a matter of moments, all of them had rolled out their sleeping mats and lied down. It did not take long for sleep to creep in on Natsuko.

"I'm proud of you three," she thought she heard, but sleep took her before she could think about it.

* * *

"I have returned, Orochimaru-sama." Satoshi said from a deep bow. His master stood above him, his ever-present right hand, Kabuto, beside him.

"Report, Satoshi-kun." Orochimaru-sama's friendly tone belied any true emotion the man was feeling, and Satoshi had long since learned to not try and guess his master's mood. He reached into his vest and produced the two vials of Hero's Water. He figured it would be better to start with the good news.

"Excellent!" Orochimaru said with his odd laughter. "Kabuto-kun," the Sannin said simply. The grey haired, bespectacled teen approached Satoshi and snatched the vials out of his hands.

"I'll begin running tests right away." The boy's smirk infuriated Satoshi, just like everything about him, but the man held his tongue. Kabuto was Orochimaru-sama's preferred servant, and so it was a deadly idea to speak against him.

"I have some bad news as well, Orochimaru-sama." Satoshi braced himself for the fallout, knowing it would not be pretty.

"Oh?" His lord's voice was light, curious, and belied the fury he could unleash.

"Motoike was found out, and Takigakure is no longer with us."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, my lord."

"It makes no difference." Satoshi blinked in surprise.

"My lord?"

"Atsuo-kun would have taken his medicine," Satoshi grimaced at the thought. "And Takigakure is weak." The man's long, snakelike tongue slipped out of his mouth and licked his lips. Satoshi suppressed the urge to shudder at the sight. "Kabuto-kun will see to the rest… You are dismissed, Satoshi-kun."

Satoshi bowed low, and raced out of the room, knowing better than to stick around longer than was necessary.

* * *

"It's good to be home!" Naruto shouted the words as they passed through the gates. The chūnin guards gave him bemused looks, but he ignored them. After last night, he was on top of the world. His team knew what he was, and still accepted them! Plus, he had met someone who was just like him. It was enough to make up for the hellish battle, that was for sure.

"Rough mission?" A lazy drawl came from above them, and jōnin and three genin leapt off a nearby roof to cut across their path. His one visible eye studied Naruto and his team with some concern. Ino, Sakura-chan, and Sasuke stood behind him, looking curious.

"Kakashi," was all Rin-sensei said, sounding tired. She placed a hand on both Ayano and Natsuko's shoulders. "We have to report to Hokage-sama."

"Of course," the silver haired jōnin said, still cheerful. Rin-sensei nodded and pushed the three of them ahead. "But you _did_ promise that we'd do this as soon as you got back." Sensei paused, and Naruto was sure he could hear her counting to ten under her breath.

"I only promised to get you to let me leave on my mission." She told him, but Kakashi's eyes just closed in a smile. "A mission we have to report to the Hokage about."

"I understand," Kakashi said with a shrug. Sensei gave an annoyed nod before spinning on her heels and pushing them forward again. Naruto wanted to ask, but the irritation was coming off Sensei in waves, so he thought better of it. "If you're _afraid_ to lose…"

"If you would notice, Kakashi," Sensei bit out. "They're not exactly in the best shape right now." She waved a hand over the injured Natsuko and Ayano.

"Naruto seems to be fine." Rin-sensei's left eye twitched, but Kakashi just looked nonchalant, slouching with his hands in his pockets. "And this won't take too long. They're only genin, after all." Naruto looked between his fellow genin, but each looked as clueless as he felt. Even Sasuke looked lost.

"Fine," Sensei finally said with a long suffering sigh. "One match, but _only_ one. Got it?" Kakashi nodded, eye crinkling as he smiled beneath his mask.

"And the wager?"

"I don't go back on my word."

"Can someone please tell us what's going on?" Sakura finally asked, sounding completely annoyed.

"Oh, Rin and I made a bet before she left on her mission," Kakashi explained.

"I think we got that part," Natsuko said, deadpan.

"It's a spar," Rin-sensei said with a sigh, and Naruto's annoyance was replaced with anticipation. He was the only one on his team able to fight right now, which meant…

"Yup!" Kakashi clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "To see who the better teacher is, we'll pit our cute little students against each other," he giggled, leaving the rest of them incredulous.

"Training ground twelve, five minutes." Rin-sensei said, and Kakashi nodded his agreement.

"Who will I be fighting?" Naruto asked, bouncing in anticipation. His eyes locked onto Sasuke with a grin, and the Uchiha gazed back at him with studying eyes.

"Sasuke," Kakashi said, and Naruto felt like cheering. Finally he would get a chance to see how far he had come.

"Get ready for me to kick your ass!" Naruto shouted at the boy. Sasuke's lips quirked in a half smirk.

"Big words, coming from the dead last." Naruto growled at the insult, but brushed it off. He would show the pretentious bastard when he kicked his ass.

This was going to be fun!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Man, this one really went on longer than I expected. I thought I was almost done with it around ~5k words, but then the "jinchuriki reveal" scenes and the scene between Rin and Shibuki just ballooned. I'm actually really satisfied with how this chapter came out for a change, and hope you all liked it as well! The first arc is completed, but we'll have a bit of excitement back home between the Naruto/Sasuke fight and other things I have planned.
> 
> Orochimaru is now also in possession of a small amount of Taki's Hero Water. I wonder what he could want with that...
> 
> On a side note, there was a bit of controversy last update about Ayano's crush. One astute reviewer figured out that she had a crush on Rin, and another took offense to said fact. The issue was resolved amicably, but I wanted to make sure it wouldn't be a problem in the future. Yes, Ayano is gay, and no, this won't have an Ayano/Rin pairing. (Or any canon girl for that matter) Kids develop crushes on teachers sometimes. Perfectly normal, and it won't ever become the focus. It's just what happened when I drew her character up.
> 
> Hope that doesn't scare any of you away!
> 
> Another thing about parings, I'm leaning heavily toward Naruto/Fu. I still want to try my hand at writing Ino's character before I decide, but I have a lot of fun writing Fu, so she's far and away the favorite right now. Others to be decided, feel free to offer suggestions!
> 
> Until next time, please give me some feedback, positive or otherwise!
> 
> (Quick sidenote, I've gone back and taken out the cliche "new clothes," scenes, as I don't feel like they fit with the tone of this story)
> 
> Justu List (In order by appearance)
> 
> Hiden: Doku no Kobura (Hidden Art: Cobra Poison)
> 
> B-rank - Offensive Ninjutsu
> 
> Satoshi gathers up the poisonous chakra from his unique cursed seal and converts it into a corrosive, gooey, projectile. Will burn away anything it touches, as well as infect whatever it hits with a potent poison.
> 
> Hiden: Zenshin Mahi no Doku (Hidden Art: Poison of Full Body Paralysis)
> 
> A-rank - Supplementary
> 
> User converts their chakra into a poisonous fog. Anything that breathes in the fog that is not resistant will have all voluntary motor functions shut down. Target will be able to breathe, blink, and all of their organs will work, but they will be otherwise incapacitated. Must be resistant to poison before use, or user will be suffer the effects before the jutsu can be completed.
> 
> Not many this week, hope you all enjoyed Satoshi's earth and poison style!


	8. The Past that Haunts Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello, and let's pretend it hasn't been, oh, 19 months since I last updated? Ahem, yeah. Real life, writer's block, and the manga blowing my version of Rin's origin story straight to hell sort of left me in a rut here. Still, I've managed to adjust my Rin's back story enough that doesn't completely break the canon that I've stuck to, and I've gone back and edited the previous chapters just enough not to contradict the new background info.
> 
> Anyway, this isn't an action heavy chapter, and it focuses quite a bit more on Rin than the genin. It's a bit of a breath in between the first mini arc and the next, but I think it's still plenty interesting. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> AO3 A/N: Officially caught up to what's posted on FFN. Next chapter is in the works, stay tuned and please review!

 

 

* * *

**Team Rin**

**Chapter 08**

**The Past that Haunts Us**

* * *

"Now don't try to kill each other!" Rin's left eye twitched at Kakashi's upbeat and nonchalant tone. Naruto grinned, cracking his knuckled, and Sasuske smirked while stretching his back.

"Make it quick, Naruto," Rin told her student. The orange ball of energy flashed her a thumbs and a confident grin.

"Go!" Kakashi called, and Naruto's attention snapped back to his opponent. He was off in a flash of yellow and orange. Sasuke took a defensive stance and blocked Naruto's overhead kick, a grimace crossing his features. Rin could almost hear the bones creak from the impact of the blow.

Sasuke pushed the blond away, and Naruto flipped back, skidding across the ground.

"Holy crap, when did Naruto get so fast?" Ino asked, jaw almost slack. Nobody answered, and Naruto charged again, feinting with a high right blow while he slipped to the left. Sasuke tracked the move and dodged the blow, letting Naruto overextend enough for the Uchiha to drill a punch into the other genin's side. Rin saw Naruto's eager fall into a pained grimace, but the boy leaned into the blow and swung a sharp elbow into Sasuke's back. Both boys separated for a moment, one grinning, the other smirking, and the slow dance of feeling each other out was over. They ran at each other in a flurry of taijutsu.

The speed they fought at was fairly impressive. For genin.

Rin spared a glance to the other students. Ayano was leaning on Natsuko, body sagging even as her eyes snapped back and forth, following the action. Natsuko's head was whipping in over dramatic movements as she yelled and cheered for Naruto – earning a queer look from Kakashi's blonde student while the other teammate shouted "take him out, Sasuke-kun!"

The Uchiha grunting in pain snapped Rin's attention back to the fight. Sasuke's left hand gripped at his cheek, which was turning a violent shade of red as the seconds passed. The boy's other hand, though, held a glistening kunai, and Rin's heart skipped a beat. She focused her attention on her own genin, expecting the worst.

"That was my favorite jacket, jackass!" Naruto's blustering complaint took the wind out of her sails as relief flowed through her. She could _not_ handle these constant panic-inducing moments. Naruto held the torn orange fabric in his hands, a look of complete despair crossed with anger on his face, ignoring the blood seeping down his exposed chest.

He brought his hands up into the ram seal with a snarl. _Here we go_ , Rin thought with a half smirk. "Kage bunshin no jutsu!" Two clones popped into existence, flanking their creator. The trio ran at Sasuke, who – to his credit – held his ground and kept up with the barrage of attacks from multiple angles for a solid twenty seconds before one clone overextended and got destroyed for its trouble. The moment Sasuke popped the clone was all the other two needed to slip through the boy's guard, landing a blow each – one to the chest and the other to the legs – sending the Uchiha head over heel.

"Good one, Naruto! Natsuko cheered, waving both arms and almost sending Ayano to the dirt. The redhead yelped, and Natsuko caught her just in time, earning a disgruntled glare from the taller girl.

"I can't believe Naruto is keeping up with Sasuke," Ino said, arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

"Sasuke-kun…" Sakura muttered, concern lacing her voice. Rin followed the girl's line of sight. Sasuke was picking himself off the ground, grinning through a wince. "He still hasn't activated it," The pink haired girl sounded relieved at the proclamation. Rin spared a look to Kakashi, and she could just about picture a smirk hidden beneath his mask. Sasuke was younger than Obito had been…

"Naruto won't stand a chance once he activates them," Sakura said, standing tall in her confidence.

"Even so, it's still impressive," Ino noted, eyes not straying from Naruto. Rin could see the gears turning behind the girl's eyes.

"Whatever Sasuke can do, Naruto can handle it," Natsuko declared with easy surety. Ayano gave a firm nod as well. Rin allowed herself a moment or pride. Sakura opened her mouth to retort, but Sasuke's voice drew all their attention back to the fight at hand.

"You've gotten better," the Uchiha said, standing back at his full height. "But you're still not good enough." Sasuke's black eyes swirled to crimson, and Rin's critical eye spotted two tamoe circling around each of the boy's pupils. Her eyebrows twitched up a fraction.

The boy might actually be the prodigy many claimed him to be.

"You're always such a bastard," Naruto sounded bored, completely unmoved by the Uchiha's dojutsu. "I'm barely starting to get warmed up," he warned with a wide grin. Four clones burst into existence in front of Naruto and charged at Sasuke. This time none of them got anywhere near touching the genin, and were reduced to smoke as the Uchiha danced around their blows with worrying ease, returning his own strikes at the first viable opportunity.

The original Naruto grimaced as he digested the clones' feedback. Rin grimaced right along with him. Naruto's taijutsu had improved leaps and bounds, but competing with the Sharingan was on a level he just wasn't ready for in straight hand to hand combat. Her eyes cut to Kakashi, whose hands were stuffed in his pockets in the perfect picture of nonchalance.

Rin took solace in the mental image of sending a raging inferno at his smug face.

"Taiju kage bunshin no jutsu!" A multitude of battle cries filled the air, and Naruto seemed finished with being subtle. Rin palmed her face. So much for strategy with the clones beyond throwing out overwhelming numbers.

Sasuke's disciplined form let him take out the clones as they approached him. He was constantly moving, giving ground to keep from being surrounded, but the sheer number of attackers broke through his defense every so often to deliver a glancing blow. When the mob of clones trickled down to just the original, both boys were panting and bloodied.

"Too scared to try anything on your own?" Frustration laced the edge of Sasuke's taunt.

"Meh," Naruto waved him off. "Your eyes are cheating just as much as my clones are." Sasuke actually _growled_ and his hands started to flash through hand seals. Naruto's eyes widened and he began his own series of hurried hand gestures.

"Oh, shit," Rin cursed, already knowing the outcome of the ninjutsu clash. From Kakashi's annoyed huff, he had too. She grabbed Ayano and Natsuko by the scruff of their necks and leapt back, ignoring their startled protests. Her chakra infused jump had them dozens of yards back, and Kakashi and his genin were next to them a moment later as well.

"They're going to kill each other," Rin said, half serious.

"Possibly," Kakashi agreed.

Naruto finished his technique a fraction of a moment before Sasuke. "Futon: Daitoppa!"

"Katon, Gokakyu no Jutsu!" Rin shielded her ears and slammed her eyes shut as the great fireball met with the torrent of wind.

The resulting shockwave from the explosion could probably be felt all the way at the Hokage Tower, Rin thought. _That_ was going to be a fun one to try and explain.

"That damned _idiot!_ " Ayano shouted above the din in anger, but Rin could hear the worry at the edges of her tone.

"Sasuke-kun, can you hear me?!"

"Oi, Naruto!" The genin shouted into the smoke and debris, but no sound came to answer. Rin's eyes scanned the field, trying to pinpoint the location of her student.

"Can you feel them, Natsuko?" She kept her tone calm for the genin's benefit. The girl was quiet for a few excruciating seconds before responding.

"They're both still in one piece," Natsuko reported, now cheerful. Rin sagged the smallest bit in relief. "But I think they're both still down…" The genin started to move forward at Natsuko's words, but she and Kakashi held them back. There was no use risking that Naruto and Sasuke would attack the first bit of movement they saw.

When the smoke cleared, both Naruto and Sasuke were just starting to pull themselves to their feet. Singed from head to toe, clothing in tattered rags, bruises forming all over, and both were grinning, happy as could be. Rin envied their youthful optimism.

"That was awesome, dattebayo!" Naruto was bouncing on the balls of his feet. Sasuke hummed his agreement, stretching his neck to either side. Her blond genin glanced toward Ayano. "Think we could do that on purpose, Ayano-chan?"

The redhead shot Naruto a dry look. "Why do you love explosions so much?" Naruto shrugged, grin still in place, before turning back to his opponent. He raised his hands back to the ram seal, but Rin stepped in.

"That's enough," Rin called before the boys had a chance to blow up the entire training ground. "I think it's fair to call this a draw, Kakashi?" Ignoring the genin's vocal cries of protest, Kakashi nodded. Rin breathed a quiet sigh. She wished she could just go home and sleep for a week, but they still had to report to the Hokage, and…

"Bur Rin-sensei, I haven't kicked Sasuke-teme's ass enough yet!" Naruto protested even as Sasuke scoffed."

"Dobe, you weren't even close to starting." Naruto moved to attack the Uchiha with a growl, but Rin caught him by the shoulder before he took two steps. Sasuke smirked until Kakashi did the same to him.

"You two will have plenty of time to try and kill each other later." Rin sighed at Kakashi's words. At least this meant that she could finallygo back to ignoring Kakashi's existence, and she could just get some _rest_. "And besides," Kakashi continued, cheerful as ever. "This means I've won the bet!" Rin's hesitant happy mood derailed off its tracks.

"Wait, _what!?_ " Rin swung around to face the other jonin, every muscle in her body at once defensive and ready to attack. "We each said our genin would win," she explained, drawing each word out as if speaking to a child. "Nobody won."

Kakashi's lips twitched beneath his mask. "Actually, you said that Naruto would win, but I said that Sasuke _wouldn't lose_." Rin's jaw clenched in frustration. She hated the devious bastard with a burning fury in that moment. "And it was a draw, so, _technically_ , Sasuke didn't lose." He ruffled said genin's hair, ignoring the boy's clear distaste for the gesture. "So, see you tonight?"

Rin let out a harsh breath through her nose and tried to ignore the six sets of curious eyes bouncing back and forth between her and Kakashi. Seeing no way out without getting peppered with unwanted questions from her genin, Rin offered a short, sharp nod.

"Naruto, Ayano, Natsuko, we have a report to deliver." Rin knew her voice came out monotone, but ignored Kakashi's ashen expression and her student's looks of worry. So much for relaxing…

* * *

Naruto stood stock still as he watched the Hokage rifling through papers. He was tired, burned, hungry, and only Rin-sensei's strict snap of an order for them to keep still and at attention kept him from ordering the old man to hurry the hell.

He resisted the urge to shoot an annoyed glance his sensei's way. It was her own fault that she lost the bet. Had had Sasuke right where he wanted the bastard. Another few clones and _bam_ , he would have knocked the Uchiha senseless. But no, had to call it a draw…

The old man hummed as he unraveled _another_ few inches from Sensei's report scroll. Naruto's left eye twitched. When did she have the time to write up a novel of a report? They had run nonstop at a spring all the way from Taki back home, and –

""Hm…" The quite hum cut off Naruto's train of thought and he waited for the old man to confirm how awesome they all were. He could _feel_ how tense his teammates were in the under the Hokage's gaze as the old man looked at each one of them in turn, face a perfect mask of neutrality.

"A battle in hostile territory against opponents both stronger and better prepared than yourselves," the old man began. "Uncovering a plot to bring down Konoha, finding a spy within our midst, and forging an alliance to be stronger than it ever was before." He took a long drag on his pipe, smoke flowing from his nose as he breathed out. "And an amazing display of the true will of fire," he grinned around his pipe and Naruto stood up to his fullest height, pride blooming in full force. "You should be proud of your genin, Rin." The old man leaned back, hands steepled in thought.

Naruto chanced a glance to his teammates, finding both girls beaming as wide as he was. A look back to Sensei, however, curtailed his mood as the woman still held a grim look in her eyes.

"Orochimaru…" Naruto blinked and turned his attention back on the Hokage, perturbed by the sadness in the man's voice. The old man's head was bowed, his eyes closed. "I should have taken care of him many, many years ago." His eyes snapped open, a sudden intensity in their dark depths that put Naruto on edge. Sarutobi looked at each of the members of Team Twelve in turn. "And for that I am truly sorry." Naruto shifted, uncomfortable at the earnestness in the old man's voice.

"What's done is done, Hokage-sama," Sensei's tone was almost gentle, at odds with her serious expression. "But it seems his ambitions are becoming a true threat to the village."

"Yes," the old man nodded. "And seeking out allies amongst the lesser villages can only leave one conclusion." He stroked his goatee, eyes faraway and grim.

"Has there been any whisper from either Kusa or Ame?" Naruto resisted the urge to ask what the hell the two were talking about. Frustration frayed the edges of his patience.

"Kakashi reported nothing out of the ordinary from Kusa, and there's hardly been a scrap of information out of Ame in recent years." The old man set his pipe aside, eyes closing in thought. "But with how very _lucky_ we were to discover this plot in Takigakure," his eyes cut to Naruto with the slightest of grins. "We cannot be sure."

"What would have us do, Hokage-sama."

The Hokage heaved a small sigh. "For now, nothing. My wayward student will no doubt know that I am now aware of his intentions. Even if that does not deter him, I will have this village ready for anything.

"Understood," Sensei responded. Naruto almost bounced on his feet, more than ready to get out of the office; if only just to _move_. "And the other thing, sir?" His hopes of freedom dashed, Naruto let his head hang a fraction in despair. The old man hummed.

"I agree with your assessment, but if it does come to that, it would be a delicate situation. Kumo and Iwa in particular would bring heavy suspicion."

Naruto raised an eyebrow in confusion, but knew better than to interrupt. Whatever the two were talking about now, they were dancing around a subject. Which meant it wasn't meant for the genin's ears, which mean Naruto felt the burning need to know the subject.

"With all due respect, Sandaime-sama, I believe the value of her life outweighs –" Rin-sensei's voice had grown heated, but she was cut off by the Third raising a single hand. Naruto heard his sensei's jaw snap shut.

"I _agree_ , Rin." The look in the Hokage's eyes was deathly serious. "But having three would upset the balance even more than it already is. It is a problem that we will have to take care of very, very carefully."

"Sir." Sensei acknowledged with a nod. Naruto snuck a glance to his teammates, meeting each of the girls' eyes in turn, but found only a mirror of his own confusion in each pair.

"Good,' the old man focused back on the genin, and Naruto stood back to attention. "You three have done remarkably on this mission and will be credited appropriately. I believe an A-rank would suffice?" Naruto couldn't keep the jubilant cheer from escaping at that declaration. A-ranks paid a _lot_ of money.

Plus it went onto his record. What other genin had an A-rank under their belt? Even Natsuko and Ayano lost their composure somewhat, the brunette beaming and the redhead slack-jawed.

The Hokage chuckled even as Sensei grumbled under her breath. "As it is," the old man s poke up, "you three are dismissed for the day." He smiled at them and waved them ff. Naruto didn't have to be told twice, and jetted out of the office. The absolute worst thing about debriefings was having to not move for so long.

It was downright criminal.

His teammates were not far behind him. "Oh man, I'm going to sleep for a _week_!" Natsuko declared as the three of them slipped outside the tower. The sun was still high in the sky and Naruto reveled in its warmth, stretching with an audible groan.

Ayano, perkier than she had been in days, rolled her eyes. "Sensei said she's going to drive us into the ground." Ayano made air quotes, repeating Sensei's words with a small shudder. "I think we'll be lucky to sleep a single full night." Natusko pouted, head hung.

"Well I can't wait for it!" Naruto declared, punching a fist into an open palm. "I'll train so hard that I'll wipe the floor with Sasuke next time."

"Maybe next time you could not blow up the training ground?" Ayano said, deadpan. Naruto stuck his tongue out at her, and Natsuko flicked his ear. He yelped and glared at the shorter girl.

"Rude," was all she said, unmoved by his reaction. "I wonder what that bet was even about, anyway."

"Sensei seemed pretty upset about it," Ayano noted, teeth toying with her bottom lip.

"Sensei's _always_ weird whenever Kakashi-sensei is around." Naruto pointed out, interlacing his fingers behind his head and stretching into an inviting bit of sun. "I don't really get it."

"That's because you don't understand the ways of women." Naruto puffed out his cheeks in indignation at the new voice, not even bothering to turn and face her.

"I don't think it's anything like _that_ , Ino-chan," Natsuko said, a curious lilt to her voice. "Rin-sensei's always more sad than anything whenever they see each other."

"Sad?" Naruto dropped his arms to his sides, giving both his teammate and the newly arrived blonde a queer look. "Kakashi-sensei pisses her off all the time!"

"And that," Ino poked Naruto in the chest as she caught up, forcing him to miss a step and come to a stop. "Is exactly why it's so obvious."

"Why _what's_ so obvious?" Naruto asked, disgruntled as he straightened out the tatters of his jacket. The fabric was like to be ripped away by a soft breeze at this rate. "And where'd you come from anyway?" Ino sighed and shook her head, blonde bangs flowing from side to side.

"Why are all boys so hopeless?" She asked nobody in particular. "Sasuke ignores me and Sakura, and _you_ can't even tell when your sensei is in love!"

"In _what_ now?" Ayano asked, speaking up in a tone that put Naruto on edge. He frowned and glanced to the redhead, finding the taller girl with arms shaking, hands balled into fists. Naruto shifted just enough to be able to catch a punch if he had to. What was going on with everyone today?

"I thought it would be obvious…" Ino explained. She had taken a step back at the hostility from the other girl. Naruto couldn't blame her.

"Why are we even talking about this?" Ayano snapped out. A flush crept up the back of the girl's neck, red as her hair. "Kakashi had to _cheat_ to win a bet to even spend time with Sensei. She wouldn't even show him the sharp edge of a kunai otherwise." Ayano's arms crossed, defiant, but the redhead refused to look at them, instead staring off into the distance, eyes gleaming.

Naruto spared a confused look to Ino and Natsuko, but Ino just stared at Ayano, slack jawed, while Natsuko brows were furrowed, head tilted to the side like she did whenever Sensei gave them strategy training. At least he wasn't the only one completely lost, then…

"So…" Natsuko spoke up after a few tense moments, drawing the word out. "Where is Sakura-chan anyway?" Ino harrumphed and crossed her arms, immediately taken by the new topic. Naruto noticed Ayano relax the barest amount.

"Don't now, don't care." Ino shrugged. Naruto frowned at the girl's response. "Whatever she does whenever she's not chasing Sasuke-kun is," Ino paused long enough to make quotations in the air. "'None of your business, Ino-pig.' So I stopped asking a while ago."

"So you guys totally buried the hatchet," Natsuko deadpanned, shaking her head. Ino sighed, her posture drooping just a bit with a faraway look in her eye.

"It doesn't really matter anymore." She crossed her arms across her stomach and kicked a rock as they walked. Naruto cringed as it managed to bounce off a nearby pole and nearly rebound right into his face. None of the girls seemed to notice his plight.

"Sasuke-kun's always distant no matter how much time we spend together. Sakura's been turning _everything_ into a competition when Kakashi-sensei's not around." The blonde heaved a sigh, shaking her head. Naruto frowned, trying to imagine his team acting anything like that. A shudder ran down his spine at the thought. Ino kept talking, almost to herself, with her eyes glazing over. "I thought it'd be great, you know? But now I just wish we were on different teams." Ino's gaze fell to the ground, eyebrows furrowed in frustration.

"Ino…" Natusko sounded hesitant and unsure, so unlike her typical confidence that cemented the surreal atmosphere for Naruto. He took a quick look at each of the girls. Ayano's arms crossed across her belly, her eyes averted toward the sky; Natsuko stared at Ino, mouth open as if to continue talking, but no words came; and Ino kept her eyes on her feet as she walked, fists balled tight enough for her knuckles to turn white.

He hated this emotional stuff, but he could relate.

"You just have to keep at it," Naruto said, clapping a hand on Ino's shoulder. Her head snapped up, eyes regaining their focus. "Natsuko and Ayano didn't like me at first, either, but now we're friends!" He flashed a wide grin. Ino grimaced, but didn't get that faraway look again.

"But you didn't know them before," Ino pointed out. "And I have no idea how you got them to like you."

"Pity," Natsuko said without hesitation. Only her small smile hinted that she was teasing. Naruto sent her a halfhearted glare.

"And he makes a fantastic meat shield," Ayano spoke up. Naruto rolled his eyes.

"You guys suck," he said before turning back to Ino. The Yamanaka watched the three of them with mix of exasperation and envy. "Point is, what do you have to lose if you try?" Ino's expression

"I _did_ try!" She bit out the words and Naruto took a wide step to put distance between them. The blonde's arms crossed again. "I'm just…tired." She closed her eyes. "Sakura doesn't take anything seriously, Sasuke-kun's _constantly_ the only one who can hold his own in a fight, and ever since he got his Sharingan, Kakashi-sensei…" She trailed off, shaking her head before her jaw set in a grimace. "Why am I even telling you any of this?" The question came out just above a whisper.

"Oh, I think he just has one of those faces." All four genin jumped out of their skin. Naruto whipped around to find Kakashi-sensei standing less than a meter behind them, hands in his pockets and shoulders slouched. Naruto's brow quirked as he noticed Kakashi's complete lack of shinobi gear; instead he was wearing a pressed silver shirt and dark pants. Only his hatai-ite marked him as a shinobi. _Weird_ , Naruto thought.

"How long have you been there?" Ino demanded, a blush rising on her neck. Naruto couldn't blame her, picturing what Rin-sensei would do if she caught him bad mouthing his team. A chill ran down his spine.

Kakashi hummed, "Ever since 'don't know, don't care.'" The man tapped his chin, visible eye turned upward in thought. Ino's flush rose from her neck to her cheeks, eyes focused on the ground in front of her.

"So it _was_ a bet about a date," Natusko declared. Naruto sent a queer look the girl's way, but Natsuko just studied Kakashi-sense up and down, eyes flicking back to Ino every few seconds.

"Really?" Kakashi asked, indifferent. Naruto wondered if the jonin had to practice to stay so aloof all the time.

"You don't have your flak jacket," Ino pointed out, starting to recover. She still did not meet her sensei's eyes, but she did study what he was wearing with a critical eye. Kakashi gave a bemused chuckle, tugging at the high color of his shirt. "Not bad, Sensei." Ino declared with a slow nod.

"Yeah, I'm sure Rin-sensei will appreciate," Natsuko agreed. She actually clapped her hands a little. Ayano grumbled something he couldn't quite hear.

"Who cares how he's dressed?" Naruto asked, scuffing the ground with his foot. Was Kakashi going to say something about what Ino had said? How had they gotten so distracted?

"Idiot," Natsuko said with a soft sigh.

"Clueless," Ino agreed with a mournful nod. Even Ayano was giving him her "pity for being stupid" look.

That hadn't happened in a while.

"Ne, ne. He'll understand someday." Kakashi ruffled Naruto's hair, and the genin glared at the lot of them. "Besides, it wasn't a date." Both Natusko and Ino looked crestfallen, Ayano's expression didn't change, and Naruto felt as clueless as he had been all conversation. If not for a date, what was the big deal about all of this? "It was for a _conversation_ , which," the jonin glanced up at the setting sun. "I am just the right amount of time late for." Without a second in hesitation, Kakashi turned on his heal and started back down the way they had come from.

"So he was just following us for no reason," Ayano pointed out, deadpan. Naruto shrugged, not bothering to try and understand the strange shinobi.

"Oh, and Ino!" Kakashi sent a look over his shoulder just as the genin started to move again. The blonde stood at attention right away, meeting her teacher's eyes. "I spend so much time with Sasuke because he _asks_." The man waved. "Later," he said and was gone in a swirl of leaves.

That had been important, Naruto decided, watching as Ino's face scrunched in a weird combination of shame, embarrassment, and realization.

"You never asked your sensei for extra training?" Ayano's dry tone spoke for all of them.

Naruto swore the sound of Ino smacking herself in the forehead could be heard for blocks around.

* * *

The hallway that ran around the Hokage's office was always a spectacle of the organized chaos of shinobi bureaucracy during a typical day, but as the orange glow of the setting sun illuminated the hall in the glow of twilight, Rin found it mercifully empty.

The moment the office door closed behind her, she leaned against it with a ragged breath. Giving the Hokage _and_ his ancient advisors a proper rundown of Team Twelve's mission had taken most of the afternoon. Only then, the Sandaime had tried using her knowledge to form a plan to deal with Orochimaru. Considering she knew little more than what she gleaned from the man who'd almost killed her students, it was a frustrating affair for everyone.

Yet the Hokage kept her in the room as he bickered with his former teammates over how to properly deal with the renegade Sannin. Her temple throbbed and she let out a low groan. When was the last time a mission had actually gone according to plan?

She couldn't remember, and was damn _tired_ of tragedy following her whenever she stepped a foot outside the village. She closed her eyes, stomach turning at just how close she came to losing her team.

For the first time since the bell test, resigning as a sensei seemed like a wonderful prospect.

"I thought I was the only one who liked being late?" Unable to help herself, Rin banged her head against the door behind her in frustration.

"Yes?" The Hokage's tired voice filtered through the closed portal. The jonin ignored it.

_Why_ had she made that stupid bet? With a quiet, calming breath, she opened her eyes to find Kakashi leaning against the wall opposite her, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his black slacks.

She blinked, trying to remember the last time she had seen the man outside his shinobi gear. The subdued silver of his shirt seemed flamboyant in the absence of his typical vest, and… was his hair styled differently? The only thing familiar was the hatai-ite covering Obito's Sharingan.

For the briefest of moments, her stomach flip-flopped like she was a girl again, and she crushed that feeling swifter than she could think. Just as she feared, the other jonin was taking this far too seriously.

She took another steadying breath before speaking. After hours of being grilled by two of Konoha's oldest and most stubborn fossils, she could feel her patience nearing her breaking point. There was no way Kakashi wouldn't put her over the edge.

"The deal was for one hour in your company," she tried pointing out. "It didn't say _when_." Her intent clear, she stepped past him. Kakashi fell into step beside her a moment later, appearing not the least bit perturbed.

"Ah, but common courtesy would say the winner gets to choose the terms of victory."

"You won with a loophole." Kakashi shrugged, hands slipping out of his pockets as they descended the stairs.

"Always leave your options open and never reveal your entire plan." Her sensei's old words grated on her coming from her former teammate.

Trying another angle, she said, "I'm tired, annoyed, _hurt,_ and just spent the last three hours being interrogated by three old bastards. I don't have the patience to deal with a fourth."

"I'm not that old."

She pushed an aggressive breath out her nose. "But you _are_ a bastard." Kakashi shrugged, not disagreeing. "Kakashi—"

"Look," he interrupted, using a somber tone that gave her pause. They came to a stop, halfway down the long, spiraling staircase. "It's been almost thirteen years, Rin." She tensed right away, fight or flight instinct ready to kick in. _This_ was what he wanted to use his time on? She could have hit him. "I just want to talk like we used to." His visible eye bored into hers, no sign of his typical aloofness. "Before… everything." His hand started to reach out to her, but paused before she had the chance to recoil.

"Is an hour really too much? What's the worst that can possibly happen?" Rin grit her teeth, a multitude of possibilities flashing through her mind. Unbidden, her hand rose to her stomach, just above her navel. The memory of pain and terror and _rage_ echoed through her, but she did not feel it.

_Channel it or bury it, turtle girl. Otherwise it'll eat you and eat at you, day after day, until you… snap._ The decade-old advice sounded clear even now, and, if nothing else, Ibiki knew how to deal with demons.

She took a shuddering breath to regain some semblance of control of her thoughts. She was far too _tired_ to deal with this right now. She raised tired eyes back to the man next to her. Kakashi was silent, but Rin could see his frown beneath the mask. Every instinct she honed in the last ten years screamed at her to avoid this, but something in Kakashi's eye held her still.

"Fine," she found herself saying. Rather than looking pleased, Kakashi only nodded and started down the stairs again. She fell in step behind him, wondering if she was truly calm or just so spent that she didn't have the energy to feel anything else.

Kakashi led her out of the tower and along Konoha's streets, the foot traffic thinning as the day grew late. Every so often a shopkeeper or civilian would send them a friendly greeting, but their walk was silent for the most part. It was only after Kakashi turned onto the path leading to the training grounds that Rin realized their destination.

The instinct to flee returned in full force.

Kakashi spoke just as she made to stop him. "There are only three days that I will never truly forget." His voice was wistful, faraway, as he kept walking. Rin hesitated for a moment before she found her feet following him. "The day Obito gave me his gift," his hand raised to tap on the head plate covering his dojutsu. "The night of the Kyūbi attack," he flicked his gaze over his shoulder toward the Hokage monument before it settled back onto her.

Rin braced herself, knowing it was coming. "And the day I almost killed you." The scar on her stomach seemed to throb, and she crossed her arms over the old wound, hunching over just a fraction.

"Why are you wasting your time with bullshit that doesn't matter?" Her voice was sharp, biting, and wholly ineffective as Kakashi spoke in the same calm tone.

"Because I'm being selfish." The jonin ran a hand over his masked face. "Because I need you to _understand_." Anger, white hot and caustic flowed through her veins at the word. How _dare_ he?

Old, bitter memories looped in her mind, playing a thousand times in the course of a second. "Understand?" She was shocked at how even her voice was. " _Understand!?"_ She clenched her jaw. How could he ask for that after everything?

"Rin…"

"A decade in one hell after another!" She shouted the words, advancing on him. Her heartbeat thumped in her ears, the drums of war guiding her charge. Memories and images she kept locked away played before her eyes. Ibiki's grin, the turtle's roar, and death. Far too much death. "All because you couldn't do what needed to be done." She stood less than a foot away from him, glaring up at him with all the force she could muster. "So tell me what _exactly_ I need to understand?"

Kakashi visibly swallowed, but held his ground. His answer came out ragged, emotions she could not guess tore away at his composure. "I was selfish that day, too." He turned his eye away from her, focusing on the dark stone jutting from the ground some meters ahead. "I made a promise to Obito; that day at the bridge." He turned back to her, and she was thrown by the intensity of his gaze. "I was supposed to protect you, always."

She snorted. "Arrogant bastard." He didn't argue that.

"Instead I damned you by saving you." The sheer strain in his voice took the wind out of her sails, the anger disappearing as swiftly as it had appeared. She closed her eyes and counted to ten before speaking.

"It was all years ago." The words sounded hollow even to her own ears.

"And you've never forgiven me." He seemed so sure of that. "Or yourself, I think." She grimaced as a wicked twist of guilt and annoyance turned her stomach, but Kakashi kept talking. "When they put the Sanbi in you, I didn't know what to do. I just had to keep you _safe._ I-"

"Stop," she demanded, bowing her head and taking slow, even breaths. It had been so long since she dredged up memories of that day, and she wanted nothing more than to leave it be. "I don't want to talk about this."

"I know." Kakashi had the decency to sound apologetic, but still plowed on. Bastard. "But being with the genin," his tone gained a wistful edge. "Is making me realize a lot of things. For better or worse, we need to clear the air here Rin."

Rin felt less than inclined to put Kakashi's conscious at peace for him.

" _You_ need to. I put all this to rest years ago." The lie came easy, practiced and well used.

"Then why did it take you five years to even be in the same room as me?" His response was swift and struck a critical blow to Rin's righteous momentum. And from the way he held himself, the bastard was actually waiting for an answer.

Something in his hesitant but determined gaze snapped her resolve to brush the issue away.

" _Thirty-seven_." The number had been seared into her mind for years, and it was only yesterday that she woke fearing it had risen to forty. "That's how much _saving me_ has cost." Sarcasm dripped from every word. Kakashi only nodded, as if he had expected the response.

"None of it was your—"

" _Don't_." The word halted Kakashi before he could spout his platitudes. "They put it in me, you brought it out, and it did the killing, but _I_ couldn't control it." She couldn't even _remember_ it. And that was the worst of it all. "Why did you bring me here?" The memorial stone glinted in the sunset, mocking her, she thought. "What did you think was going to happen, honestly?"

"I don't know." He was quiet and collected, and Rin resisted the urge to lash out and hit him. Barely.

"I'm done," she said, more than ready to file this day away with the rest of her awful memories. She just wanted to find a dark, quiet place and _sleep_ until the world righted itself again. His hand closed around her wrist as she made to turn away, and she reacted. She sent a swift elbow back with her free arm, turning into the blow with her hips. It earned her a pained grunt and a free wrist.

She glared at him even as he settled himself back into a defensive stance, his visible eye challenging her. She was on him in a split second in a flurry of furious blows, taijutsu expressing what her words could not.

Rin always warned her genin about the dangers of tunnel vision when battling an opponent, but as she attacked her old teammate. Rin felt a strange sense of detachment as the fight overwhelmed her focus. She could see Kakashi deflect her blows without moving to counter; could hear his measured breathing; could _feel_ the determination rolling off him in waves.

It only served to make her angrier.

"Fight back!" She demanded, stepping up her speed a notch. Kakashi danced around the blows before he caught one and sent her spinning away. She grit her teeth in frustration. Kakashi had always been better at taijutsu, but this was just _maddening_.

She regained her balanced and fell into a stance only to find Kakashi just standing there, arms at his sides, eye pleading. She dropped her head, losing the will to fight. When she looked up again, Kakashi had retreated toward the memorial stone. He sat before it, just looking.

After a moment of furious internal debate, and for reasons she couldn't quite understand, she strode over to the stone and sat next to her old teammate Kakashi said nothing and just sat there, unwavering

Rin's eyes skimmed through the ever growing list, pausing on every one of the thirty seven who died thanks to the Sanbi in her belly. They glowed against the dark stone, calling to her. Mocking her. Obito's most of all.

"He was in love with me." She did not know why she said it, but the words were out of her mouth before she registered she was speaking. Of all the guilt and regrets she carried, not returning the Uchiha's devoted feelings was painfully low on the list.

"He had good taste," Kakashi half-joked. It fell flat.

"You were in love with me, too." She noted just how hollow she sounded just then, but her emotions were spent and she could not bring herself to care.

"Still am." Rin let out a short, brittle laugh. How blunt and nonchalant could one man be?

"You have no idea who I am anymore." The only people who had a clue anymore found their home in the Hokage's office or down in the Torture and Interrogation Department.

"I have the general idea."

"Enlighten me." It was morbid curiosity that drove the conversation at this point, Rin decided.

"I know what you've done with Naruto and your girls. You took the dead last and two no-name genin and are bringing out potential in them that _nobody_ would have expected. I know exactly what it takes to be the type of teacher – the type of _person_ – that it takes to do that." His hand reached out and traced over the name Namikaze Minato. She stared at the name, uneasy at the comparison. It had to be her utter exhaustion, but each of his words was crushing her resolve to leave everything buried. "And I've talked with Anko, quite a bit."

Rin sighed, not even drawing enough energy to be angry any more. Her eyes met Kakashi's, and the other jonin held up his arms, placating.

"You were with them for what? Five years?" Her fist balled in the grass, tearing up the blades with a satisfying rip. Kakashi kept speaking. "I tried to see you, you know?" She frowned. She had not.

"Near complete isolation," Rin said, and left it at that.

"I never made it through a conversation with Sarutobi without asking, begging." Kakashi let out a hollow laugh, staring hard at the stone before him. When he looked at her, she turned away from the intensity she saw there. "And then you were just at the gates one day. And I said _nothing_." She heard him sigh, but still didn't speak up. She had no idea what to say.

"I should have demanded to go on that mission, or –"

"No," she said, head snapping up and around. She surprised herself with the force of her reply. Kakashi blinked, his rant stopped in his tracks. "You would have died." The recollection of Jiraiya's tired, grim face still twisted her with sickening guilt.

"Maybe," Kakashi allowed, voice soft as a whisper. "But at least I would have been there." He sighed. "Next thing I know, you're a jonin working at the hospital and hating the world." He trailed off.

"You wouldn't think much of the world either if you'd been dealt my hand." She could taste the bitterness of her words. "Do you know what they did? All to try and control it? The seal wasn't designed to be _controlled_."

"Rin…"

"I couldn't make it worth it." The words came on their own, now. She watched the sky, unseeing. "Years of training, isolation, dealing with _it_ in here." She tapped a finger against her temple. "People _died._ And they just _shrugged_ it off. Slapped a new seal on me and called it a day. How could I not be angry?"

"I love this village, Kakashi, even after everything I still love it." She leveled a look his way, meeting his gaze. "But I _hate_ the world we live in."

"Which explains why Sarutobi assigned you a genin team…" Kakashi said after a long minute of silence.

"No shit," she deadpanned. "Breeding attachment to the village through passing on the Will of Fire." She shook her head. She could not figure out exactly what emotions were swirling in her mind, but she felt lighter than she had in years. So she kept talking. "I almost lost them." Her voice wavered. "I can't handle another tragedy …"

"Then it's up to you to get them trained up, _make_ them stronger." It was the closest to confident Kakashi had sounded all night. He turned back to the stone, fingers tracing over Sensei's name. "All in the hopes that they can do what we couldn't."

"Make the world better." It was something Minato-sensei had spoken to three young shinobi, once upon a time. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, trying to let it all go. She felt his fingers brush her hand, and for the first time in forever, she didn't spurn the touch. Their fingers interlaced, and Kakshi's mask shifted as he smiled. Her lips quirked up, just a fraction, as well.

"How do you do it?" She asked, looking at their joined hands. His was hard, calloused, and the slightest bit sweaty, but she did not want to pull away. 'Stay so positive after everything?"

"Willful stupidity." Came his swift, easy response. She laughed, full bellied and heartfelt and with a touch of grief. His own soft laughter joined hers, and – for just a second – they were teenagers again. And even if it was just for a moment, Rin realized it was _enough_.

It was well beyond time to start moving forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, the info the manga revealed that I mentioned before the start of the chapter was that she had been briefly made the three tails jinchuriki before dying. The point of diversion in this story is now Kakashi managed to avoid giving Rin a killing blow (instead hitting her just above her navel), which led to a series of events that made Rin what she is in this story. Before I had just had some vague tragic event planned, but this ended up working to my favor.
> 
> The conversation with Kakashi here does not mean that Rin's 100 percent okay now. She's taken a big step toward finally healing, but has a long way to go. Crafty old Sarutobi saw it coming, though, and would probably laugh his ass off if he was watching that scene through his not-creepy-at-all crystal ball.
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you think! This story is not abandoned, and I'm already part of the way into the next chapter. Please review to let me know if this story's still bringing the good stuff or if it should go slither back to the hole I dragged it out of. Cheers!


	9. Chakra Trials

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, technically this was a shorter hiatus than last time. Typical reasons: life, the universe, and other works taking up my time, but I caught the Naruto bug again and decided to give a fresh chapter a go. I'll save the rest for the end, enjoy!

She tried her damnedest to keep the boredom from her voice. "All clear," Natsuko said into her mic, her whisper coming out as a monotone. Green and brown blurred by her as she raced along from tree to tree in a wide zigzag formation, making sure to change her elevation every few hops. At first border patrol seemed like it should have been an interesting mission, but it had turned out that Team Twelve had not been assigned to the borders themselves, but to the third wave of defense.

"Clear." Ayano confirmed, though she managed to maintain the attentive discipline in her tone even through the static white noise of the radio. Natsuko rolled her eyes at that.

Their last two weeks had been nothing but leaping from tree to tree through the thick forests that stood strong near almost all of the landlocked borders of Fire Country. The landscape had grown dull by the middle of the first day. Worse, they had another week on this rotation.

"C-rank per week." She reminded herself in a whisper. It wouldn't completely catch them up to Sakura and Ino, but it would get them close enough so the other two wouldn't be able to hold it over her head when she got back to the village. The well-worn spark of competition lived on between the graduating kunoichi of their class, and Natsuko felt irritated that she couldn't show off her accomplishments.

Stupid classified A-rank mission.

"Naruto? Report." Natsuko blinked to back to focus at Rin-sensei's voice. Their commander had developed a habit of leaving them to their own devises during this mission. She unclipped her staff from its case and prepared to change directions for Naruto's location.

"Eh?" Naruto's irritated answer eased the knot of tension beginning to build in her belly. "Still haven't cut the stupid leaf, Sensei." Natsuko blew out a frustrated huff and resisted the urge to palm her forehead.

"The _patrol_ , Naruto." Ayano sounded as exasperated as Natsuko felt.

"Oh, one second." Naruto paused for a beat before continuing. "All clear within three kilometers!" He declared, and Natsuko could picture his wide grin from his tone.

"Clones are cheating," Ayano said, deadpan.

"Neh, neh. We're on a mission. No such thing as cheating!" He laughed over the line and Natsuko shook her head.

"Technically true." Rin-sensei allowed. "But it does defeat the purpose of learning to work with standard resources."

"But I—"

"Might not always have the clones, Naruto." Rin-sensei's interruption was not a rebuke, but a gentle reminder of one of her most repeated lessons. Master your strengths, but never become so reliant on them that you will be crippled without them.

The hours upon hours of training without staff did not bring Natsuko much in the way of happiness, but she didn't feel naked without the worn weapon in her hands anymore.

It never really seemed to sink in for Naruto, though.

"In any case," Rin-sensei continued. "Three kilometers brings us right to the check in station. Work on your **Shunshin** , and I'll meet you three there." Natsuko did not need to be told twice to abandon the leisurely sweep and formed her hands through clumsy seals. Despite being shown this technique toward the end of her academy days, she still had not fully mastered it.

She finished weaving the seals and the chakra burst through her system without verbalizing the jutsu, and the Body Flicker blurred the world around her. Her perception of her surroundings warped as if she were looking through the bottom of a glass bottle, and her legs moved so quickly that she did not _feel_ like they were moving, despite her knowing better.

Seconds passed and her augmented senses snapped back to normal and she only kept balance with a hasty application of chakra to her feet.

She glanced behind and judged she managed to move in the area of two hundred meters and smiled.

Progress!

She reported the distance to her teammates, and the radio crinkled with Ayano's immediate response. "Two twenty," she said with a rare teasing tone. Natsuko made a dramatic harrumph over the line and started to go through the seals again.

"Fibe hundred," Naruto spoke, but his voice was muffled as if he had a terrible cold. Natsuko's lips twitched to a smile.

"Ran into a tree again, didn't you?" Naruto grumbled something Natsuko couldn't hear. She just grinned wider.

"Two thirty," Ayano said, breathing heavy. "The race is on!" Natsuko cursed under her breath and completed the technique. She went farther on this attempt, and repeated the process as fast as she could without pulling a Naruto.

Minutes later Natsuko came stumbling out of the **Shunshin** at the base of a small, one room building built directly in the thick trunk of an impressive tree. She saw neither of her teammates and took the opportunity to collapse onto her back with a breathy laugh. The Body Flicker was not incredibly _difficult_ , but it drained chakra like no other.

"You alright, Natsuko?" Naruto still sounded odd and Natsuko craned her neck to look behind her, finding the blonde – tissues plugging up his reddened nose – sitting on a branch just above the checkpoint's entrance. The boy hadn't even broken a sweat. She grumbled under her breath, only mollified when Ayano landed out of her own **Shunshin** with sweat pouring down the redhead's pale face.

She fell to a seat next to Natsuko with an almost inaudible thud. "Capacity can still use a bit of work," she said, running a hand through her hair. "A _lot_ of work." She amended a moment later, joining Natsuko in laying back and staring at the sky.

Never one to be left out, Naruto fell in next to them a moment later with his arms as a pillow and a lackadaisical grin below his swollen nose. Natsuko let out an amused breath and let her teammate have his moment, taking the opportunity to rest before Rin-sensei came and—

"I wouldn't call it mastered," Rin-sensei said, leaning over the trio with an eyebrow raised in wry amusement. "But improvement is something, right?" She made a seal with her left hand and a shroud of green chakra flowed over it as she brought it down to Naruto's nose. "Got ahead of yourself again, Naruto?" Though she sounded exasperated, she was smiling, and Natsuko fell into a familiar curiosity about her sensei.

Ever since they had returned from Takigakure, Rin-sensei had taken their training up to a level that left her and her teammates driven into the ground.

Sometimes literally.

But the woman had also been carrying around a different demeanor. The most accurate word Natsuko found to describe it was _softer_. Rin-sensei had always been stern but patient and kind, and she still was those things, but there lacked a rough edge to her that Natsuko had not realized was there until it was gone.

"Only _once_ this time, Sensei," Naruto said, flaring his now properly colored nostrils with a grin. He flashed their teacher a wide smile. "Thanks!"

"That's your free one of the week."

"Are we finished for the day, Sensei?" Ayano asked, pulling herself to her feet and standing at attention. Natsuko gave the girl a quizzical look.

"Well, I've sent our predecessors on their way and our relief is due in about six hours." She glanced toward the sun dipping toward the horizon. "Why don't you three spend some time on your leaf exercises for a couple hours before getting some rest."

Naruto cheered and two dozen clones popped into existence, running into the surrounding trees to retrieve leaves for them. Ayano sat down heavily and Natsuko couldn't help the tired groan that escaped her as she sat up.

"To be able to keep going while on the edge of exhaustion is essential for a shinobi's survival," Rin-sensei said with a bright grin. Natsuko met her sensei's eyes with a deadpan look, and trailed her gaze toward Naruto. "A couple hundred more clones, Naruto." The blonde hastened to obey and the forest bled orange.

She would complain about the unfairness of it all if he didn't have a demonic chakra beast in his belly.

"And you, Rin-sensei?" Ayano asked in an odd, formal way. Where Rin-sensei had grown more easygoing, Ayano had become more and more uptight as the weeks passed. No amount of prodding had gotten Natsuko anywhere, but she had never been accused of giving up easily.

"I have training to keep up with as well," the brunette said, hand coming to a rest on Ayano's shoulder. "Can't have the other jōnin leaving me behind, yeah?" She smiled, earning a tentative one from Ayano in return, and disappeared into her own **Shunshin**.

A small pile of leaves drifted to the ground between Natsuko and Ayano courtesy of a distracted clone. Natsuko took one up with a sigh, pinning it between her thumb and two forefingers. It felt moist and flexible, which as far away from the end result as possible. She pushed that thought away and closed her eyes, focusing on bring the remaining dregs of her chakra to the three fingers.

She _compressed_ the energy, pressing the chakra together so that it would be delivered with a crushing force.

Theoretically, anyway.

Rin-sensei explained elemental manipulation as changing the nature of the chakra itself. Natsuko had the misfortune for having the hardest nature to transform chakra into. The energy wanted to be malleable, and the earth nature did _not_. Where fire only had to make the chakra volatile, or wind had to shape it to a fine, cutting edge, earth had to turn her chakra's nature on its head and make it do things it naturally resisted.

Using the correct natured chakra with an elemental technique would strengthen the result dramatically, Rin-sensei said, and so Natsuko powered through the _weeks_ of the slowest progress she had ever taken to learn anything.

"You're just tearing the leaf," Ayano said to her right. Natsuko winked open an eye to find the nearest Naruto clone with his hands pressed together and a panicked expression of apology twisting his face.

"Don't tell the boss!" He said, bowing at the shoulders. "This is just so _boring_."

"And not all of us can have an army of clones learn for us," Ayano said, deadpan. She raised a fist and walloped the clone on the head, dispersing it in a puff of smoke.

"Harsh much?" She chided Ayano. Ayano held up a finger. Somewhere in the distance, the real Naruto yelled at his clones to stop slacking, and a wave of shuffling followed as at least half the clones redoubled their efforts after being caught. The corner of Ayano's lips quirked and Natsuko took the point.

"If we have any hope of doing this before the deadline, we have to go all in," Ayano said, curling her hand into a fist. Her eyes caught the light of the setting sun, and Natsuko had never seen the redhead ever look so fierce.

"Didn't think you wanted to be a chūnin that badly." Ayano faltered, a faint blush flitting across her cheeks.

"I just don't like backing down from a challenge," she said and turned back to focus on her own leaf. Natsuko saw the air above her teammate's hand shimmer with heat and found determination redoubling itself in a desire to keep up.

Rin-sensei had mentioned the exams in passing during one of their lighter training days, and Naruto started to pester her to let them compete. Their teacher's response was always a resounding _no_ , and Natsuko was glad for it. After Satoshi and seeing just how outclassed they could be, she trusted her mentor to know when they would be ready.

But Naruto was the most stubborn ninja Natsuko had ever met, and Ayano joined in with her own quiet way. They had worn down Rin-sensei's patience until she had given them an ultimatum.

If they wanted to take the exam, they had to prove they could master a chūnin level skill.

And so they spent hours upon hours upon _hours,_ of their _free time,_ staring at leaves, trying to replicate the results from the chakra paper through a chakra resistant material.

"Yatta!" Naruto's voice cried out in sheer joy and both Natsuko and Ayano snapped their attention to one of the clones that was jumping up and down, waving half of a leaf in each hand. Shouts of disbelief came from his fellows, but the clone just disappeared with a grin. Each remaining one blinked, grin, and repeated the feat on their own leaves within seconds.

Natsuko experienced mixture of jealousy and redoubled determination as the clones all disappeared to leave a maelstrom of sliced leaves whirling in their wake. The original Naruto grinned and grabbed at every leaf within reaching distance, repeating the technique over and over again as if just to prove he could.

"I can't wait until I can use shadow clones," Ayano said, observing their celebrating teammate with a halfhearted grumble.

"Your chakra reserves are building, but it still may be awhile Ayano." Rin-sensei said, having crept up behind the pair in complete silence. A hand landed on Natsuko's shoulder before she could flinch away on instinct. She turned to her sensei to find the woman's face locked in a neutral expression while studying Naruto.

"How soon would it be safe to try?" Ayano asked, her voice stilted as had become her habit.

Rin focused on the redhead with an encouraging smile. Ayano bowed her head. "When you make chūnin. Maybe."

"Well, since Naruto can do it now…" Natsuko led, but Rin-sensei shook her head.

"It has to be all three of you," she said, adamant. "You can't make light of the exam. If you aren't ready, you shouldn't compete."

"It took Naruto a month and a half with _shadow clones_ ," Natsuko said, unable to keep a whine from edging into her voice.

"Do you have any advice that can help, Sensei?" Ayano asked, still looking down.

"Naruto used his strength to cover his weakness. Chakra—" She glanced toward the blonde genin and cut herself off, eyes widening. Naruto was flipping through hand seals, eyes closed in concentration. "And _impulse_ control. Brace yourselves." Rin-sensei's arms snaked around their fronts and Natsuko _felt_ her teacher's chakra lock them in place.

"FŪTON: DAITOPPA!" Natsuko thought Naruto mastered the jutsu during their first mission, but his previous results paled in comparison. The technique usually pushed the anything in its path with supernatural force, but now it _tore_ into the trees in its path. Bark flew, branches broke, and chunks of wood were ripped from trunks as the wind technique blew through the forest.

Naruto's jaw dropped as he witnessed the damage his jutsu caused. Natsuko was sure her expression matched.

"Could've been worse," Rin-sensei muttered. "Naruto, think before you use new techniques!" She shouted, but the blonde protested.

"I made sure not to face you guys or the building!" He pointed out. "And did you see how _awesome_ that was? That will beat Sasuke's fireball no problem." Naruto spun and pointed at Ayano. "Let's test it out!"

"No." Ayano and Rin-sensei said at the same time, and Naruto adopted a sour look. Natsuko laughed.

"Anyway, chakra control. Elemental manipulation, at its core, takes a large amount of control. Both of you have much less of an obstacle than your teammate." Natsuko supposed that was fair.

"Well, I can't let the idiot leave me in the dust," Natsuko said while shooting a grin toward Naruto, who made an exaggerated roll of his eyes.

"That's… sort of the spirit." Rin sensei sighed. "As for advice, well, unlike pure chakra manipulation, emotions can help the process. Anything from stubbornness." A hand came to rest on Natsuko's head, mussing her hair. "To passion." Rin-sensei did the same to Ayano, who blinked in surprise. " _Use_ them, and you might just make the deadline."

"Eight days?" Ayano asked, nodding. The light didn't need to catch her eyes for her determination to shine through.

"Eight days." Sensei confirmed. "But for now, rest." Their teacher guided them to the guard station without releasing their heads, somehow managing to corral Naruto as well.

Natsuko thought the woman was spending too much time with Kakashi-sensei as she tried in vain to break free.

* * *

_Ayano paced back and forth along the balcony, acutely aware of the sun rising in the sky to the east as it taunted her with its reminder of passing time. With an irritated growl she stomped her foot down on the weathered concrete and spun to the looming door with purpose. Her fist reared back, surged forward, and stopped a hairsbreadth beneath the apartment's designation,_ 3T _ **.**_

" _Come on." She hissed the words under her breath,_ willing _her hand to cross the final distance. It did not move. "You experienced true terror in Takigakure and survived, you can knock on your sensei's damned front_ door _." The healing burns along her back ached as she held her fist overextended above her, shaking._

_The door pulled open and her sensei's big brown eyes crossed to focus on Ayano's fist now resting centimeters from her nose. Ayano pulled it back with a squeak and stood at attention and tried to look nonchalant as a blush gained traction on her cheeks._

" _I thought I heard your voice Ayano," Sensei said, head tilting to the side. Her loose hair flowed with the motion, brown locks framing the woman's face on one side and exposing bare neck on the other. "What's up?"_

" _I-I wanted to see if…" Ayano trailed off, the words she had planned sitting at the edge of her tongue bur refusing to come forth. That Sensei was wearing nothing but a giant, fluffy, purple robe did little to help her. "If we could start on training right away." She bowed her head to both tear her eyes away from her sensei and to hide her crimson cheeks with her hair._

" _When I said bright and early, I meant after a couple days of rest." Ayano chanced a glance through the protective screen of hair to see a bemused smile on the jōnin's lips. Ayano adopted her best impression of Naruto's modest grin and found the courage to stand straight again._

" _Ah, I guess I'm just eager to get better." She forced a small laugh and backed up a step, already planning to sprint away and forget about awful plans and worse execution. She raised a hand in a wave and took half a step before Sensei's hand wrapped around her wrist in a warm, steady grasp. Ayano froze._

" _Since you're here, let's check your back." Ayano's protest caught in her throat as Sensei pulled her into the apartment with a single, firm yank. The redhead had not spent much time thinking about the older woman's apartment, but her mental image had been something bigger and far less impersonal. "Have a seat." Sensei pointed to the only piece of sittable furniture in the sitting room, and Ayano slipped around a scroll and book covered table to the overstuffed armchair and sank into its squishy depths._

_Ayano let out an instinctive groan of appreciation as the seat seemed to drain the tenseness from her muscles._

" _Two things to never skimp out on with money," Rin-sensei said from her little kitchenette as she dug around in her refrigerator, pulling out jars of what Ayano assumed were various salves and setting them on a tiny table. "Shinobi gear and a place to plant your ass." The older ninja sent a toothy smile over her shoulder and Ayano found herself letting out a small laugh._

_Sensei had been in such a foul mood the evening before that Ayano struggled to reconcile the humorous attitude and warm disposition the woman displayed. She wondered if Rin-sensei was putting on a front for her benefit or if something happened the night before that broke her from her rut._

" _Has it been any better?" The former head medic mixed ointments and herbs together with practiced ease, hands steady. Ayano could not identify what ingredients were being used before they were ground into a large mortar._

" _A bit," Ayano answered and tore her eyes away from the woman's work and busied herself taking a closer look around the apartment. The walls were painted a subdued blue and bore no artwork or windows to break up the monotony. A pair of doors stood at the back of the room, one closed and the other open to a bedroom with the only personal items Ayano could make out from her sensei's home._

_Their team portrait sat on Rin-sensei's nightstand alongside a picture of another shinobi team. Ayano's heart sped up at the sight and her throat went a bit dry as she realized just how much they meant to their teacher._

_She turned her eyes away, suddenly uncomfortable with that knowledge, and found the papers on the table in front of her were either all written in code, or were speaking of subject matter so advanced she could barely scratch the surface on understanding._

" _Shirt," Sensei said in the tone she saved for giving orders on the battlefield. Ayano blinked, looked to find her sensei standing next to the chair with the large mortar in one hand and an expectant eyebrow raised._

_She kept her blush contained to a faint pink as she pulled off her shirt and Sensei removed the bandages covering her back in a meticulous fashion. She leaned her front over the arm of the overlarge chair, hissing as the last layer of protection was removed, taking some healing skin with it._

" _Sorry Ayano," Sensei said with genuine regret. "Burns always suck, but now that we've got access to better supplies, I should have you fixed up in no time." Something thick and cold landed on the back of Ayano's left shoulder and she grunted in reflex, expecting pain. Instead she felt nothing but relief as Sensei combined the salve with a medical ninjutsu and traced her hands along the burn in a long, repetitive circle._

_It was bliss._

" _Now, now. Someone new already? I'm hurt." Kakashi-sensei stepped out of the door next to the bedroom – proving it to be a bathroom - naked from the waist up minus his mask and the hatai-ite crossing his left eye. "I haven't even left yet."_

" _Always full of tact, Kakashi." Rin-sensei said, annoyed but not angry. "Ayano…"_

_The implication hit the genin like a freight train, and her world shattered._

Her eyes snapped open to the sight of embers dying in the fire pit. Reality crashed back into Ayano's perception and she forced her breathing to calm and her heart to stop hurting. She rolled onto her back and hoisted herself into a sitting position, resting her forehead against raised knees.

"Everything alright, Ayano?" Sensei's soft voice at once soothed and irritated her. It just figured Sensei would have watch when she woke from that particular dream. She pressed her face further into her knees, trying to stop her _stupid_ emotions.

"I'm fine, Sensei. Just a bad dream." Her reply came out muffled.

"Takigakure?" Sensei guessed and Ayano barely held back a rough laugh.

Having nightmares about all the crap that happened in that village would have been normal. It was even expected. Yet nothing about that mission had ever haunted her in her sleep, yet one awkward situation at Sensei's home _did_. Ayano did not want to know what that said about her state of mind.

Still, she was ready to latch on the excuse, only to have her words die in her throat at the look of genuine concern in her mentor's eyes. Ayano swallowed the lie and shook her head. "No," she said. "Just some personal… stuff." Sensei nodded as if she had expected that answer, surprising Ayano. Had the suggestion been bait?

"Would you like to talk a about it?" Sensei shuffled forward, placing more wood in the pit, and placed a hand on the pile. It blazed to life in such a nonchalant display of control over fire elemental chakra that pissed Ayano off.

" _No_." Her irritation bled into her voice and Rin-sensei blinked in surprise. Ayano wondered if she had ever been anything but polite to the woman before.

"If it's bothering you enough to haunt you in your sleep." Rin-sensei spoke gently despite her surprise. "I've found that the easiest solution is to speak with someone about it." Her head tilted to the side and her eyes drifted out of focus. "Granted, it took me _years_ to figure that one out."

The image of a cheerful Kakashi flitted across Ayano's mind, and she had to fight to keep her expression neutral.

"It doesn't have to be me," Rin-sensei continued with a sad smile. "But even if you need to go to someone else, don't let whatever it is sit around in your head."

It was ironic, Ayano thought, that the only person she trusted enough to speak with would also be the most _mortifying_.

She glanced at her teammates, snoring in their sleep, and considered whether that embarrassment would be worth getting the weight off her shoulders.

"You know how heavy those two sleep," Rin sensei said, guessing her concern. She adjusted herself to set cross legged, elbows on knees and chin resting on her cupped hands. Still, Ayano hesitated. On one hand, she could get it out of her head. Put it in the world and let it go wherever it would. Move on.

On the other, devastating humiliation.

Her lips stayed shut.

The silence dragged on for long minutes, broken only by the constant crackle of the fire and the occasional call of a cricket in the distance before Sensei started to tell a story.

"I've noticed a look your eyes, Ayano." The girl's heart skipped a handful of beats. If she couldn't stop Sensei from knowing, she wanted to tell her, rather than being figured out. "For weeks now, and doubly so since this mission began."

"I—"

Sensei held up a hand. "I don't know when exactly it started, but it worries me. I've seen it before." Rin-sensei's eyes went faraway again. "A long, long time ago, back when I was just a genin." Ayano found her interest hooked despite her wariness. Rin-sensei _never_ went into detail about her past, as a rule.

"I had a teammate, Uchiha Obito." A brief, wistful smile found its way onto her expression. "He was always carefree and cheerful. With a wide smile and a penchant for always helping people or getting into trouble. Always one or the other."

"Sounds like Naruto." Ayano noted.

Rin-sensei nodded. "In some ways, yes. But _you've_ been reminding me of him lately, more often than not." Ayano raised an eyebrow in question as Sensei's description had sounded nothing like her. "Never quite as serious, but every bit as dedicated." Her demeanor dropped and she met Ayano's eyes with a hint of something Ayano could not figure out. "Until a good way into the Third Shinobi War."

Ayano experienced a growing sense of dread.

"It was our first mission after Kakashi made jōnin. Just the three of us since Minato-sensei was needed elsewhere on the front."

"The Yondaime Hokage was your sense? The _Yellow Flash_?" Ayano asked, shock overwhelming her annoyance at Kakashi-sensei's inclusion in the story. A sudden pressure sparked at the edge of her reality. That was one hell of a shinobi lineage to be part of. Rin-sensei, to the Yondaime Hokage, to Jiraiya-sama, to the _Sandaime_ Hokage…

"I never mentioned that?" Rin-sensei's eyes widened a fraction. "Well, now you know." She shrugged, and continued on like she had not dropped such a massive detail. "Now, Obito could get serious for missions, but there was an edge to him the day we left the village that I'd never seen before. He tried to put all of his focus on the objectives ahead of us, and mostly succeeded, but I could tell there was something on the edge of his mind. Something niggling at his attention to draw his focus away from the present, and he had that look in his eye."

Rin-sensei kept her eyes steady on Ayano's. The genin swallowed reflexively.

"No matter what I did over the next few days, I couldn't pry out of him what was wrong." She shook her head. "We got separated for a time, and by the time the dust settled…" Sensei took a deep breath as her voice caught. "Obito was trapped beneath a boulder, half his body completely crushed."

Ayano recoiled at the mental image, stomach twisting.

"He survived for a few minutes," Rin-sensei still did not break eye contact and Ayano could not look away. "Long enough for us to see that look gone from his eye. Long enough for him to _give_ that eye up for a rival turned friend." _Kakashi of the Sharingan_ , her mind filled in the blank. "Just long enough for him to be himself for precious moments longer before he died."

Ayano had little idea how to respond to the story other than feeling overwhelming silly to be so torn up over an unrequited crush.

"So you understand that I can't let you stew on this anymore. The Yamanaka Clan has a fantastic clinic back in Konoha that—"

"Sensei," Ayano interrupted her teacher. She still couldn't break eye contact after the woman had shared so much. A blush rose to her cheeks with every passing moment, but after being interrupted, Rin-sensei seemed content to wait for Ayano to build the courage to continue.

Ayano told her sensei everything in a rushed explanation on the winds of a single breath. Her jōnin instructor listened with a passive expression Ayano was thankful for, and when the need to breathe brought her small drama to an end, she awaited her sensei's judgment with a thundering heart.

When Rin-sensei stood up, Ayano was sure the woman would leave the clearing to put as much distance between the pair as possible, but she was surprised as Sensei circled the fire to sit next to the redhead, laying a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"Oh, Ayano," she said with a drawn out sigh. Ayano could make out sympathy, embarrassment, pride, and a touch of bemusement. Sensei spoke few words, but made her stance utterly clear.

Ayano had never expected rejection could come with a side of acceptance, and found that she felt lighter than she ever had before, despite a lingering sense of loss.

When she managed to fall back asleep some time later, Ayano rested well.

* * *

"Oy, Sensei! When are we going to be done with this boring stuff?" Naruto asked, grumbling as he checked the traveler's passport against both the border patrol's logbook and his own bingo book as Rin-sensei had told them to.

Natsuko clicked her tongue. "Stop complaining, Naruto," she said, stamping a passport of her own and handing it back to an older woman, who snatched it away and power walked through the station toward the Land of Fire side. "Next?" Natsuko called, and a bland looking man with a Kusagakure hatai-ite stepped forward and Natusko began to repeat the process.

The old man in front of Naruto huffed in irritation. Naruto gave him a lazy glare as he stamped the passport and handed it back.

"Be patient Naruto." Sensei admonished as she paced behind the three of them, pretending to read a series of scrolls as she kept an eye on everyone passing through. "I think today may be our last day before we head home?"

"Really?" Naruto asked, sitting up in excitement. This mission had been so _boring_ after he had gotten the leaf exercise down. Even the bump up from patrolling inside Fire Country's borders to manning the waypoints themselves had gotten dull within an hour. Five days of it had been _torture_.

Especially considering that until they had gotten to the Kusagakure border that morning, they had had to deal with nonstop rain the entire time, and dealing with soaked and angry people who had to wait in line for hours was not Naruto's idea of a good time.

"Damn it," Ayano said under her breath to Naruto's right. She was logging passports and notes with one hand, sparing each visitor only just enough attention to confirm who they were, and passing them along. She went through more people than Natsuko or Naruto even as half her attention was focused on a leaf in her off hand.

She was last of them not to have gotten it down after Natsuko managed to crumble her leaves the day before. Naruto wished he could help the girl, but he could only come up with teaching his teammate the **Kage Bunshin** behind Rin-sensei's back, and he knew Ayano would never go for it.

Maybe he could convince Rin-sensei to teach her the chakra battery jutsu, and Ayano could use—

Fingers snapped in front of his eyes. "Some of us would like to get out of here _today_ ," an irritated girl said. Crimson eyes behind a pair of glasses glared at Naruto and he glared right back, snapping the Kusa passport out of her hands with enough force to throw the girl off balance a step. The annoyance in her eyes redoubled. "Don't you know it's not smart to harass a foreign kunoichi?" She jerked a thumb to the hatai-ite holding back her oddly styled red hair several shades darker than Ayano. "Do you have any sense?"

"You're one to talk with a haircut like that." Naruto sniped as he took out his annoyance by flipping the pages of his bingo book. She didn't have a last name, which only made it _more_ irritating to try and find her.

She took insult, running her hands through her hair with a haughty expression. "Like anyone wearing _that_ ," she gestured to all of him, "would know anything about fashion." Naruto snorted. If having one half of your hair cut to the shoulder and layered to look spiky while the other half was straight and falling to your mid back was fashionable, he wanted nothing to do with it.

He'd happily stick with his orange, thank you very much.

He found her page in the book, confirmed her name was Karin, and marked the page for review before scribbling her name in the official logbook. The moment he was done he thrust the passport into her face, just a centimeter below her nose. She snatched it back, scratching his hand in the process, and narrowed her eyes at him.

"Are you going to be in the chūnin exams?" She asked, holding up the line to the other travelers' displeasure.

"Why do you care?" Naruto asked, matching her expression.

"Because I want to know if I'll be able to kick your ass without being arrested." She smirked, planting a hand on her hip in challenge. Naruto felt himself grin to match.

"Just look for Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage, and know I won't take it easy on you, dattebayo!"

"Heh, you'll try Uzumaki-baka, but I—"

"Hurry the hell up Karin-baita!" The foreign redhead's left eye twitched as another genin around their age called out to her from the building's exit. She glared at the guy who had to be her teammate with more anger than she'd managed for Naruto. She grumbled something under her breath, nodded toward Naruto, and trailed after her grinning teammate.

"Making friends?" Sensei asked, now leaning against the wall behind them, still engrossed in her scrolls.

"Weird girl." Naruto groused.

"Will you _please_ start holding your own weight here, Naruto?" Natsuko demanded more than asked, looking harried. A tick of guilt led Naruto to speeding people through the checkpoint in an effort to catch up.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of taking notes on people Naruto was sure he would never see again and trying to remember he should try to avoid pissing off the foreign visitors.

Few things had ever tested his patience as much as the last few days.

But when the four of them lounged in the small dorm provided for them at the end of the night, Naruto felt mostly relaxed in the knowledge that tomorrow they would be going home. He only contained his excitement for eating a meal prepared by someone _else_ once again by relaying his idea to Rin-sensei, who was hesitating, but _considering_ it.

Which was a first for any of his ideas outside the middle of training.

Then a spark of flame lit up the darkening room and Naruto snapped his attention to the redhead laying on the top bunk across from him. Ayano's eyes widened as ash fell from her hand into her gaping mouth, but she didn't seem to care as she cheered and leapt down from the bunk.

Sensei hoisted herself off her lower bunk, dodging around a hanging Naruto, and handed Ayano another leaf from her pocket while Natsuko looked on from the last bed with baited breath. Ayano took the leaf and it burned to a crisp moments later. She looked up to their teacher with the widest smile Naruto had ever seen her wear.

He cheered for the girl as Natsuko hoisted their taller teammate up from behind in a body hug, both laughing heartily.

"Well," Rin-sensei said after they had calmed down. "I guess that means you'll be competing in the exams." Her smile turned melancholic for a moment before she sat down on the floor and pointed to the area in front of her. The three genin scrambled to sit in a triangle formation before her.

"As if there was any doubt, Sensei," Naruto boasted, throwing an arm around each of his teammates.

"It came down to the wire." Ayano rubbed the back of her neck, sheepish, but Naruto bumped her shoulder as Natsuko defended her.

"Yeah, but we did it in just a month and a half," she said. "Some people take _years_."

"And some people take days," Rin-sensei cut off their growing cockiness at the head, taking some of the air out of the room. Her smile returned. "But I didn't doubt you three for a moment. Have you figured out the real purpose of our mission? Why I forced you through desk duty rather than training?"

Naruto blinked and wracked his brain. The only thing he could think of that stood out as weird to him from the missions were—

"The bingo books," Ayano said with a snap of her fingers. She pulled hers out from her jacket and laid it on the floor. Naruto and Natsuko did the same with theirs.

They had spent the last five days at a handful of the Land of Fire's most frequented border crossings, taking note of every ninja entering the country.

Including every _genin_.

It wouldn't be everyone, Naruto guessed, but there were a hell of a _lot_ of them.

"You had us gathering information before you even knew if we were going to compete." Natsuko put words to Naruto's thoughts and Sensei's grin widened.

"Like I said. I would never underestimate what my genin are capable of." Rin-sensei tapped each of their bingo books in turn. "Now spend some time combining notes and pouring over the details." She dropped a fresh bingo book on top of theirs, pages clean. "And this is why I always say a shinobi has to look—"

"Underneath the underneath," Naruto and his teammates parroted the saying, and Naruto thought he understood the saying for the first time. Rin-sensei was crafty as hell.

With an eager grin, Naruto dove into his book and started going over his notes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super transition chapter was go! A quick peek into each of our Team Twelve genin's heads and their current state of mind. In following Rin's hesitant but fair view on advancing her students, she didn't give immediate approval for her rookies to compete like the other jonin. Instead, she laid out one hell of a difficult test for them in starting to master elemental manipulation. They are all far from proficient at it, but it's enough for Rin to believe them ready.
> 
> It's been roughly 2 months since the adventures in Takigakure, and Rin's talk with Kakashi has had some bleeding effects rippling out to others. Most notably with Ayano in this chapter, where her initial arc of settling into her identity comes to a relative close. I hope you all enjoyed how that went, as I thought it was paramount in setting up her character moving forward. Natsuko still needs a little TLC, but she's a much more straightforward person who's own challenges will continue in time.
> 
> Now, I know Naruto isn't amping up in strength/maturity to some of your likings, but I firmly believe he's on a natural pace. He's already a bit more patient than in canon, and, frankly, in a heck of a lot better shape as well. He won't be taking down Orochimaru any time soon, but he'll certainly hold his own.
> 
> So what do you think? Next chapters will look to be more Naruto-centric as we move into the chunin-exam arc. I'll be spending some time coming up with different tests as, frankly, the canon tests have been done a near infinite number of times and I would like to do something different. So there's that to look forward to!
> 
> Until next time (hopefully in less than 16 months)!


	10. Foreign Influence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returning to Konoha after a mission is not always a smooth process. With the influx of foreign shinobi, Naruto finds himself in the middle of uncharted territory

“I’m just saying there’s definitely enough time to get more training in!” Naruto continued his argument, bouncing on the balls of his feet as Ayano handed her shinobi identification card to an older chūnin manning the entrance desk. Nothing about the man stood out other than how _slow_ he moved while reading the card and marking down the genin’s return.

After a week of dealing with the same type of work, Naruto had no idea how the man managed to stay sane without moving as fast as possible.

“The exam starts _tomorrow_ , Naruto.” Natsuko said from behind him. She leaned most of her weight onto her staff like a walking stick, and her normal, carefully maintained appearance broken by bedraggled hair and a sweaty face.

“Exactly!” Naruto agreed.

“This close to the start, it’d be smarter to just rest.” Ayano spoke in a low, tired voice as she took her ID back from the guard. Naruto slapped his down on the desk with a force matching his eagerness to make something of the day. The shinobi glared at him, and Naruto glared right back.

“After how hard I pushed you three, I agree with the girls.” Naruto’s hopes were dashed as his sensei took his teammates’ side. He sent her a pleading look, but she only glanced down to his stomach and flicked an eyebrow. Naruto grumbled under his breath, gathering his teacher’s meaning.

It sucked that the others didn’t get the boost from having a tenant in their gut.

“Never ever challenge a group of women and hope to win, kid,” the guard said with a chuckle. Naruto’s patience for the man grew thinner as his teammates bristled at the joke.

“Can’t you go any faster?” He complained, and the guard _froze_ in place for a moment before looking right into Naruto’s eyes with an intensity Naruto rarely saw. The shadows caught on the lines on the man’s face, and a chill went down Naruto’s spine as a sliver of killer intent passed between them.

“Would you take the security of this village for granted, _Genin_ Uzumaki?” Naruto’s left eye twitched and he stood up straighter in defiance.

Sensei’s hand landed on his shoulder just as he opened his mouth to tell the old man exactly where he could shove it. “Please don’t take offense for my student’s impatience, Sarutobi-san.” Naruto tensed as he heard the man’s name. This old man was related to the Hokage? “We’ve been away for some time.”

The member of the Sarutobi clan eased back into his seat, still looking annoyed. “There are policies that need to be respected, and lessons to be—”

“Hey, Shirou-ojisan!” A deep rumble of a shout interrupted the chūnin. The man’s eyes closed as a sigh of irritation left him with his head hanging. “Send for an ANBU squad, we need an escort to the old man right away!” A bearded man taller than Rin-sensei and almost twice as wide from solid muscle ambled up to the desk, cigarette smoke trailing up into the air in a lazy trail as he leaned onto the chūnin’s paperwork-covered workspace with a grin. He wore the standard jōnin uniform, and three familiar faces trailed behind him in a triangle formation around four people Naruto didn’t recognize.

“Yo, Naruto!” Inuzuka Kiba called with a grin, his teeth bared as he raised a hand in greeting. Naruto would have responded in kind, but was distracted by the prettiest girl he had ever seen. Standing just behind Kiba, she loomed over the genin by at least a head. Her long black hair was pulled back in a low ponytail save for two bands of hair left to frame her angular face. With her slight frame and wide, brown eyes, Naruto was smitten on site.

“There are proper rules about this, Asuma,” Sarutobi Shirou muttered, but Naruto paid him no more mind as he focused on the visitors, put off as he noticed the girl wearing a hatai-ite around her neck with four wavy lanes arranged in a diamond pattern rather than Konoha’s spiral leaf. It looked as if they had taken Kirigakure’s symbol and rotated it.

“I’ve got four shinobi claiming diplomatic immunity.” Asuma-sensei put out his cigarette with a burst of air from his fingertips. His smile gave way to a grim line. “The rest is for my dad’s ears only. S-class.”

That snapped Naruto out of his daze.

“Eh? You guys got to go on an S-rank mission, no fair!” Kiba’s grin only widened as he puffed out his chest, but Shikamaru spoke up from the back of the formation.

“If this had been an actual S-rank, we’d all be dead.” Kiba deflated, complaining about his teammate killing the vibe, but Naruto spotted Chōji nodding his agreement with his lazy teammate. Naruto had to do a double take when he realized the large genin had a sword _twice_ his size strapped to his back. When did the Akimichi get such an awesome weapon?

Naruto scrubbed his hair in frustration and disbelief with how far it looked like he was falling behind his fellow rookies.

The oldest among the strangers laughed beneath the bandages covering the bottom half of his face. He wore his hatai-ite sideways, so the metal plate rested above his left ear. It had the same pattern as the girl’s. “At least the Nara and Akimichi understand when they’re outclassed, brat.” The foreign ninja’s hand flashed forward in a blink, flicking Kiba in the back of the head. The Inuzuka flailed his hands in protest, glaring at the older man.

“You shouldn’t be so hostile, Zabuza-sama,” the pretty girl said, sighing. By the way Shikamaru and Chōji laughed along with the other two foreign shinobi, Naruto guessed this had become a familiar pastime.

“I’ll send for Gecko and Neko,” Shirou said with a sigh. Naruto’s ID hit the genin in the back of the head. He turned to glare at the gate guard, but was utterly ignored. Natsuko hiding a giggle behind a cough did not help soothe Naruto’s irritation.

“Grumpy old bastard,” Naruto said under his breath, choosing not to retaliate under Sensei’s warning look.

“I’m just glad our C-ranks aren’t the only ones that turn _interesting_.” Ayano sidled up to the group, looking at each with the same glint in her eye she got while answering Sensei’s quiz questions. “You’re the Demon of the Mist,” she said, nodding toward the man with the bandaged face. Naruto thought the man grinned beneath the wrappings.

“Good to know not all of Konoha’s brats are clueless.” Zabuza crossed his arms, eyebrow raised. “Shame you don’t have the sense to be wary of me.” Sensei tensed and she released Naruto, taking a half step forward.

“Surrounded by friendlies,” Ayano said with a shrug, turning to the pretty foreigner. “And I figure Asuma-sensei wouldn’t let you anywhere near these three without good reason.” Shikamaru hummed something that sounded like he agreed. “Kofuku Ayano.” She offered her hand along with her name and a bright smile to the kunoichi, who blinked in surprise but returned the greeting.

“Haku,” she said in a voice as delicate as the rest of her. She gestured to each of her teammates in turn. “These are Akemi and Akio.” Both spoke a quiet greeting and Naruto thought they must have been twins. They stood the same height a head below Haku, had the same brown, spiky hair, and wore matching, simple outfits of blue on black. The only difference Naruto could see were their eyes and voices. One had blue eyes and a low voice, while the other had green and the higher tone of a girl.

“Welcome to Konoha,” Ayano said, still smiling. “Last I heard, we _weren’t_ hearing anything out of Kirigakure or the Land of Water.” Ayano still held Haku’s hand as she tilted her head to the side like a curious puppy.

“Well, it--” Zabuza’s shoulder landed on Haku’s shoulder, cutting the younger shinobi off. Asuma spoke up as well.

“Hence the S-class part, kid. Need to know only.”

“And _they_ need to know?” Naruto asked, curiosity piqued now that he wasn’t supposed to know the information.

“We _don’t_ ,” Kiba said, arms crossing. His nin-dog, Akamaru, yipped in agreement from his place in the hood on Kiba’s jacket.

“You’ve been escorting these guys without knowing why?” Natsuko asked, surprised.

“Part of the job,” Asuma said with a shrug. Rin-sensei hummed her agreement.

“It’s been troublesome,” Shikamaru said, stuffing his hands into his pockets and backing away from the four foreign shinobi. “But they haven’t been hostile.”

“That is good to hear, Nara-san.” Naruto blinked, surprised at the new woman’s voice. He turned to find two ANBU flanking him, their ceramic masks pointed right at Zabuza, who stood up straighter under their gaze. Naruto shivered, glad he wasn’t the one under their impassive scrutiny.

ANBU could be downright _creepy_.

The other one coughed, ruining their mystique a bit and taking some of the tension out of the air. “We’ll take it from here.” He coughed again. “Asuma, if you would come with us?”

“Of course,” the bearded jōnin said. He waved his other two students away from the Mist ninja and took up Kiba’s position on point. “You three get some rest,” he told his students. “The rest of you, follow me.” The seven disappeared in a burst of speed, making a beeline right for the Hokage tower.

“Even checking back into the village can never go smoothly,” Natsuko said after they had gone. “I think we’re cursed, Sensei.” Rin-sensei rolled her eyes at Natsuko’s halfhearted joke.

“That’s not even funny, Natsuko.” Ayano spoke while still looking after where the strange group had gone. Naruto was doing the same.

“When did they take the sword?” Chōji spoke up for the first time. The larger genin looked startled as he reached behind his back to empty air. “I swear I just had it!”

“They’re ANBU,” Shikamaru said with a shrug.

“Just hope Zabuza doesn’t blame you for it going missing.” Kiba joked, but Chōji went a little green. Shikamaru kicked a pebble from the ground that hit Kiba square in the middle of his forehead, knocking the boy back a step.

“What was that for?” Kiba rubbed at the spot of impact, pouting toward his teammate. Shikamaru just gave him a _look_ , and Kiba backed down. Naruto chuckled at Kiba’s misfortune, earning a glare.

“Are you guys going to be entering the exams?” Natsuko asked before Naruto could get into it with the Inuzuka. Kiba perked up in an instant.

“Hell yeah! Asuma-sensei signed us up the second he could.”

“Aw man, Rin-sensei made us do all this special crap before she would let us.”

“You’ll thank me later!” Rin-sensei called absentmindedly over her shoulder as she spoke with the Sarutobi manning the gate desk.

“Probably trying to make sure you wouldn’t embarrass her in the first round.” Kiba laughed, and Akamaru yipped along with him.

Naruto clenched his fists, knowing he shouldn’t rise to the bait, but… “I’ll do way better than you, dog breath.” A simple insult was better than a punch to the jaw, right?

“We’ll see about that, won’t we Akamaru?” Kiba’s grin went feral as Akamaru leapt out of his hood and onto his head.

“Save it for the exams, guys.” Shikamaru said. The Nara trudged forward, eyes to the sky. “And I’d worry more about the foreign ninja, than each other.”

“You’re such a killjoy, Shika.” Despite his protest, Kiba trailed after his teammate with Chōji bringing up the rear.

Shirou Sarutobi’s bellowing yell for them to get back to the desk and follow procedure had Naruto in stitches as Team Asuma fell under the uptight ninja’s mercy. He shared a glance with Natsuko and Ayano, and the trio _ran_ toward the village proper before they could be delayed any longer.

Naruto felt completely _done_ with paperwork.

“So I wonder what that was all about,” Natsuko said as they turned onto the main road and dodged around the growing number of civilians.

“Had to be big.” Ayano reached up to pull her hair back into a loose tail, back arching in a stretch at the same time. “I think they might have been from one of the rebellion’s forces.”

“The symbol on their hatai-ite was weird for Kiri.” Naruto agreed. He threaded his hands behind his head and looked up to the sky as orange and pink bled into blue and took a deep breath to get all the familiar smells in one go. It was good to be _home_.

“No use speculating in the _open_ , you three.” Naruto was not surprised Sensei had caught up without making a sound, and threw an annoyed look over his shoulder.

“Boring.” He accused and focused forward again. The girls mumbled their agreement, but Sensei brushed them off.

“But still right,” she said. “Now, I’m _ordering_ you lot to go home and rest. I won’t have any of you passing out in the first round because you overextended yourselves, got it?” Ayano and Natsuko voiced their agreement without issue, and Naruto only gave in when the back of his head started to sting from Sensei’s eyes.

“Yes, Rin-sensei…” He tried not to sound too disappointed. There was so _much_ he could do.

“Great, I’ll see you all, bright and early!” Their teacher waved and left them behind with a sealless **Shunshin**. Naruto had the passing desire to figure out how to do ninjutsu without hand seals, but put it out of mind. His chakra control sucked less than before, but he still had a long, long way to go.

“So which faction do y—” Ayano trailed off and they all froze as a pained scream reached their ears. Naruto’s heart skipped a beat as he recognized who it belonged to.

“Sakura-chan!” He sprinted forward at top speed, leaving his teammates behind and leaping to the rooftops without a conscious thought. In less than twenty seconds he found his crush on a less traveled side street, standing next to Ino as both held position over three younger kids in a defensive formation. She held one arm folded on itself and held high and Naruto felt a deep rumble in his chest as a growl escaped his throat.

She was bleeding.

“Naruto-nii!” Naruto recognized the voice belonging to the Hokage’s grandson, Konohamaru, who had taken it upon himself to declare Naruto his eternal rival once upon a time, and the blonde genin’s anger grew.

Messing with Sakura-chan was ridiculously stupid. Messing with a kid that actually _looked up_ to Naruto? It couldn’t be measured.

He landed in a crouch next to Sakura-chan and stared down the ninja across from them. He wore a black bodysuit with a hood that had _cat ears_ of all things, and purple makeup decorated his face in purple lines and curves. “You alright?” He asked the group at large, not risking looking away from the sneering boy.

“Just _fine_ Naruto,” Sakura-chan said, though her voice shook a bit.

“This bastard thought it would be okay to mess with kids while in Konoha,” Ino said in a voice low and mocking. She twirled a kunai in her off hand and held her right in a pouch Naruto assumed was full of shuriken. “We thought he ought to know better.”

“Nobody was _actually_ going to get hurt,” the bastard in question said. “You two jumped in the _middle_ of my swing!” Naruto narrowed his eyes at the bloody kunai the teen held. Sakura-chan’s blood. His nostrils flared.

“Why the hell were you trying to scare kids?”

“They attacked me!” Naruto chanced a glance back to Konohamaru and his friends, who looked sheepish under his eyes.

“We were playing ninja…” The stuffy-nosed Udon said, head hung low.

“He looked like he’d be fun.” Moegi defended herself, tugging on her long hair she managed to keep in two sections pointed to the sky. “He’s wearing makeup and a cat suit!”

“It’s _war paint_.” Killing intent bled off the strange man in waves and Naruto snapped his focus back to him and took a step forward. Ino did the same while Sakura backed closer to the kids. Compared to the irritating gate guard’s killing intent, this guy’s was nothing, but that didn’t stop him as he reached for a large, wrapped _something_ he had bundled onto his back.

“Kankuro!” A shouted rebuke froze their enemy in place as a blonde girl dropped into the alley on his left. She wore her hair in four short tails that held her spiky hair in check, and stood taller than all of them. Her hatai-ite gleamed in the light of the setting sun, highlighting the sigil of Sunagakure, a thin rectangle over an hourglass shape. “What the _hell_ do you think you are doing?” She gripped wide meter and a half long block of metal in a white-knuckled grip.

“I—”

“You know what? No.” The girl interrupted, turning to Naruto and the rest in a half bow. “I apologize for whatever actions my little brother took.” Kankuro crossed his head and turned his head up and away, sulking. Naruto’s guard started to drop in sheer surprise.

“How’s your arm, Sakura?” Ino asked, keeping her kunai poised.

“Burns a bit, won’t stop bleeding.” Sakura-chan tried to her voice steady, but Naruto picked up a tiny tremble that gave away her worry. Ino’s eyes narrowed and she marched forward. Naruto kept pace with her in case the Suna kunoichi was only putting on an act of apology.

“You attacked kids with a _poisoned_ kunai?” Naruto’s heart skipped a beat in worry, flashing back to Sarutobi and Rin-sensei passing out. His step faltered and he looked back to Sakura-chan to make sure she was still standing. That Konohamaru or one of his annoying but friendly friends may have been hit if Sakura-chan and Ino hadn’t been there…

Ino reached into a pocket of her sleeveless shirt – a bulkier thing than her normal dress – and pulled out a thin piece of metal the size of a needle that Naruto recognized as a senbon. The foreign kunoichi’s eyes hardened and she stepped in front of her brother. The giant block of metal opened up into what Naruto vaguely recognized from history class as a Sunagakure war fan – Naruto couldn’t help the passing thought of _awesome_ that flitted through his mind – and held it in a defensive position.

“Kankuro?” Her tone sounded clipped, demanding answers. The child attacker winced.

“I wasn’t aiming to hit them, Temari!” Kankuro voice grew higher as he tried to defend himself. “If she hadn’t come out of nowhere, nobody would have gotten hurt!”

Naruto felt a distinct lack of sympathy. “What kind of idiot are you?” Ino stopped her advance as Temari tensed, but did not stop laying into the Suna shinobi. Kankuro bristled and only his sister’s unmovable stance kept him from stepping toward the blonde pair. “Whatever, just give me the antidote.” She twirled her senbon between nimble fingers and slipped it into a wristband and held out her hand expectantly.

“That is Sunagakure’s _classified_ formula,” the boy said and Naruto had enough.

“Who cares?” He said, advancing and cracking his knuckles. He didn’t like having to scare people, but Sakura-chan’s health was at stake. “If you won’t give it up, we’ll just take it.” Ino moved in step with him. He did not know how much stronger she had gotten since the academy, but his clones should more than make up the difference.

“Kankuro.” Temari’s jaw clenched and Naruto thought she didn’t want to fight, but she stood by her brother. Naruto could respect the kunoichi for that.

“It’s my own recipe,” he said in a whine. “I—”

“Can’t afford to piss off the host village,” the older sibling cut him off.

“It’s a non-lethal dose.” He crossed his arms, not giving in. “It’ll wear off in about twenty minutes.” Naruto paled as he realized what taking an actual _serious_ injury from a poison that didn’t let the bleeding stop for so long would do…

“Forgive me if I don’t want to take your word for it,” Ino said.

“She shouldn’t have dived headfirst into a situation she couldn’t handle!”

“You were attacking _kids_ ,” Naruto repeated the main point as Konohamaru and friends shouted their agreement. The four fight-ready ninja returned to a silent standoff, waiting for someone to make the first move.

The tension broke in their favor as a new voice called from behind the Suna shinobi. “What trouble have you gotten my team into, Dobe?” Naruto did not think he had ever smiled at Sasuke’s appearance before.

“Never been glad to see you show up, Teme.” Naruto grinned as Kankuro spun on his heal to face the Uchiha. With the foreign shinobi outnumbered, and Naruto _knowing_ how good Sasuke was, he felt confident they could take them and get the antidote.

“The freaky guy poisoned Sakura and is being stingy with the antidote.” Ino summarized and Naruto felt a fresh wave of killing intent come from both Sasuke and Sakura.

“I am not freaky!”

“Don’t make it sound so bad,” Sakura complained. “I saved the kids!”

“You do know where you are?” Sasuke asked, the condescending tone Naruto hated in full effect. “You have nothing to win here.”

Temari sighed and snapped her war fan shut as she stood up from her ready stance. “He’s right, Kankuro.”

Kankuro grumbled as he reached a hesitant hand into an inner pocket. “If Gaara were here…” Temari sent another sharp look his way and Kankuro shut up, pulling a tiny vial of red liquid and throwing it toward Sakura. Ino intercepted it and held the contents up to the light, eyeing it suspiciously. Kankuro’s face twitched.

Ino popped the tiny cork off the vial and wafted the air above it toward her nose. She flinched against the smell but handed it off to Sakura with a grimace. “Straight onto the wound?” She half said to her teammate, half questioned the foreign ninja. Kankuro gave a clipped nod and Ino seemed pleased for a split second before she regained a neutral mask.

Sakura poured the liquid onto her cut and Naruto watched out of the corner of the eye as the blood began to clot the moment the liquid made contact. The girl hissed in pain but managed to cover the entire slice.

Naruto began to relax as tension bled out between the groups.

“We should go,” Temari said with a pointed look to her unhappy brother, who nodded after a reluctant moment. Before they could make good on that idea, another figure dropped onto the street whose presence came along with a sense that put Naruto more on edge than he had been since Takigakure.

Standing the same height as Naruto, the redheaded boy wore a dark brown shirt over mesh underarmor with pants to match and a white sash tied loosely across his chest so its tail fell between his waist. A gourd _bigger_ than the new shinobi was strapped to his back on a long leather strap, and Naruto wondered what use it could be in a fight.

Pale green eyes in sockets shadowed by lack of sleep looked between each groups with a complete lack of any emotion Naruto could recognized. He shivered when the boy’s gaze passed over him for just a brief moment. He could see the boy dismissing them all in turn, and while the slight pissed Naruto off, he found he couldn’t talk.

“Kankuro, Temari.” the boy’s voice was as dispassionate as the rest of them. “You’re embarrassing the village. Come.” The other two Suna shinobi flinched at the words, and when the gourd-carrier leapt toward the roofs, they both followed without a moment’s hesitation.

When they were gone, Naruto let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“What was _with_ that guy?” Ino asked. She curled in on herself and her breathing was ragged. Naruto noticed Sasuke looked nonplussed as well.

“I don’t know,” Sakura-chan hugged her arms across her stomach, looking green. She shook her head and looked to the kids. “You three okay?”

“Yeah, thanks Sakura-neechan,” Konohamaru said, managing a trembling smile.

“That was an awesome save!” Moegi gushed, hopping on her toes. Sakura-chan glanced to her injured arm and hid a grimace behind a smile.

“I hope that guy doesn’t come looking for us,” Udon said, shivering and sniffling.

“I doubt he would care _that_ much.” Ino patted the sickly boy on the head with a reassuring smile and Naruto shook himself from his stupor.

“Yeah, and if he does, we’ll show him what happens when you mess with someone from Konoha! Right, Sasuke?” Silence greeted Naruto’s boast and a glance over his shoulder found the brooding genin staring off in the direction the Suna shinobi had retreated, a look on his face that set off Naruto’s warning bells.

“That feeling…” The Uchiha whispered, eyes going glassy.

“Naruto!” Natsuko’s shout brought Sasuke back to the present as he shook his head, frowning. Both of Naruto’s teammates rounded the corner, out of breath and pale. “What the hell!?” Naruto winced. He knew they were exhausted and felt a twinge of guilt for leaving them in the dust, but Sakura-chan had been in trouble, so…

“Is everyone alright?” Ayano asked. Naruto gave a hesitant confirmation and Ayano nodded before promptly sat and rested her head against raised knees.

“You _knew_ we were running on empty, Naruto.” Natusko leaned against her staff, getting her breathing under control. “You can’t just leave us behind like that during the exams.”

“So you three are going to be in the exams as well?” Ino asked, saving Naruto from his angry teammate’s annoyance.

“Yup,” Ayano said without looking up at the group, deadpan. Natsuko shot a concerned look toward the redhead.

“You are on the _brink_ of chakra depletion.”

“I’m fine.” Ayano hoisted herself back to her feet to prove her point and focused on Ino and Sakura. “When did Kakashi-sensei sign you up?”

Naruto left the girls and the excited kids to talk about the exam, eager to not to earn any more ire. He shuffled over to Sasuke, who stood within hearing distance of the conversation without being close enough to be drawn in.

“Who do you think that guy was?” Naruto asked. The dark haired boy looked to the middle distance for a minute before shrugging.

“Someone strong.” There was an excited edge to Sasuke’s words that Naruto didn’t understand. He wasn’t _afraid_ of the Suna ninja, but he wasn’t thrilled about being in the same city as him. Not when he gave off a feeling like Satoshi had in Fū’s village.

“Something about him sets me on edge,” he said.

“That’s what makes it interesting,” Sasuke said with a slight smirk. “We can only become stronger through challenge. These exams may actually be worth my time.” He glanced toward his teammates chatting with Naruto’s for a brief moment before nodding. “I think we should avoid each other as long as we can.”

“What? Why?”

“Because when I beat you, Naruto, I want to make sure _everyone_ can see.” Sasuke’s grin took the edge off the insult and Naruto felt himself returning the gesture.

“So you want an audience when I kick your ass? I can live with that.”

“We’ll see.” Sasuke nodded to Naruto, spared another look to his team, and walked off without a word. Naruto watched him go and felt his earlier tension drain away.

If Sasuke was embracing their new opponents without hesitation, there would be _no way_ Naruto would let himself fall behind. He walked back to his team with a bounce in his step, ready to take the exams by storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of the Chunin exam setup! Next chapter we kick off the first task, which, as mentioned last chapter, will be different than the quiz in canon!
> 
> Some more ripples are felt in this chapter by the surprising appearance of Zabuza, Haku, and company! We are much further down the timeline than the Wave Arc - and what happened there will be explored, I assure you. Asuma's team did *not* have it in place of Naruto. Them showing up also gave me a chance to show a brief slice of life for the new Team 10, leaving the only remaining team yet to appear on 'screen' is Team Kurenai, who will be showing up next chapter!
> 
> Also, fun fact, Haku is most definitely a boy in this fic. Should lead to some amusing situations sooner rather than later.
> 
> Anyway, please let me know what you think! Reviews are an author's lifeblood, dattebayo!


	11. Tests and Tokens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Chūnin Exams begin!

“Damn crappy alarm clock!” Naruto cursed as he burst from his apartment at a dead sprint, crunching into the fruit that would have to serve as breakfast. _An apple a day keeps Sensei from kicking your ass_ , he reminded himself as he took to the roofs. The dull grey sky promised rain, but the air around the village buzzed with a tense excitement all the same.

Naruto supposed the civilians would have their own reasons for looking forward to the chūnin exams as well.

He grinned, feeding on the atmosphere more than his apple, and doubled his speed, almost feeling nostalgic for being nearly late to the academy.

“Naruto!” Natsuko’s volume could rival Sakura’s at her angriest. ”Hurry the hell up!” Naruto marveled at his teammate’s sensor abilities since he could not even _see_ the building yet. He belted out a reply at the top of his lungs, earning a trail of disgruntled complaints in his wake, and managed to jump _over_ the academy to land in the front courtyard with a flourish, knocking over a group of foreign shinobi in the process.

Naruto did not recognize the musical note symbol on their hatai-ites, and offered a hasty apology. They glared at him and he felt a brief flare of killing intent, but they were otherwise silent. He offered a sheepish grin, rubbed the back of his head, and retreated before the situation could escalate.

“Making friends already?”

Naruto rolled his eyes at his teammate’s sarcastic question and just shot the redhead a grin. The pair of girls commandeered a small space around the shuriken and kunai targets like they had agreed upon the night before, and Naruto hopped on top of one of the wooden posts to make himself comfortable.

“A lot of people here,” he said, able to scan the crowd from his vantage point. He tried spotting any of his other friends, but the mishmash of ninjas was too thick for him to spot anyone else familiar. “Shouldn’t we be going inside?”

“They barred the doors,” Natsuko said while twirling her staff in a clumsy figure eight pattern, ending each repetition with a slow, clumsy strike. Naruto raised an eyebrow in question at the amateurish display, but Natsuko shook her head the tiniest bit. He frowned, but took the hint not to ask.

“Could be a test of patience.” Ayano sat just out of the range of Natsuko’s bō in the lotus position. “See if anyone breaks from nerves before the test even starts.”

“That’s stupid,” Naruto complained, already feeling the effects of the oncoming boredom. “Who’s going to quit before they know what they’re up against?”

Naruto did not believe anyone should _ever_ quit, but to give up so easily would leave an even worse taste in his mouth.

“It has to be a trick! This has to be part of the fucking test!” an older ninja bearing the grass symbol of Kusagakure shouted, charging through the crowd toward the academy’s front doors. He raised a fist back, the blue glow of chakra shrouding it, and thrust it at the doors with a battle cry.

Naruto had to shield his ears from the echoing _gong_ that filled the air as the shinobi flew backward over their heads, howling in pain.

“People like that,” Ayano said with a small smirk turning the corners of her mouth.

Nobody else tried to break into the building, but a dozen or more teams left the grounds the longer they all waited, complaining about being given misinformation.

Ayano and Natsuko seemed content to wait and Naruto followed their lead, swallowing his impatience.

It took until noon, a full three hours after they were _supposed_ to meet at the academy grounds, before the front doors opened and a smiling Iruka-sensei stepped out into the day, flanked by a jōnin with severe scars scraping across his face and chin that towered over all of them. With his black trench coat, hatai-ite one a dark bandana, and a frown that stretched shadows along his face, the man looked to be Iruka-sensei’s opposite.

“Hello everyone!” Iruka-sensei’s shouted his greeting along with an enthusiastic wave that drew the beginnings of angry retorts from the crowd before the man behind his shoulder glared at anyone who started to make a commotion. “And congratulations on passing the first section of the first test!”

Naruto blinked.

_What_?

Ayano sighed and climbed to her feet, stretching. “Called it,” she said. Natsuko rolled her eyes and poked the redhead in the back with her staff. Ayano caught it and knocked it to the side and Natsuko made an exaggerated stumble to save her balance while Ayano shook her hand, hissing in pain.

“What the hell is up with you two?” Naruto asked, but his teammates only sent him quick _looks_ that conveyed something that went over Naruto’s head. He grumbled, hating being out of the loop.

“Anyone who is still on the grounds is eligible for the next section of the first exam,” Iruka-sensei was saying. “Please Follow Morino-san, and he will get you where you need to go.” The jōnin cocked his head back toward the academy and spun on his heel to stride down the hallway. The mass of genin raced to follow, pushing and shoving the entire way.

Forcing everyone into the building at once was chaos, and Naruto could not catch Iruka-sensei’s eye as the crowd pushed him along. He only managed to stick with his team thanks to Ayano’s iron grip on his and Natsuko’s wrists.

They followed Morino-san through a set of doors hidden at the end of a hallway and down a winding flight of stairs to a basement that Naruto had no idea existed.

The space was wide, empty, and Naruto suspected that he could make echo with little effort. Worn, plain wood creaked underfoot and covered the area from white-washed plaster wall to white-washed plaster wall. Columns hewn from solid yellow-orange stone rose every dozen meters in a line down the center of the room, supporting a ceiling sporting rows of artificial lights letting off a dull yellow glow that filled the cavern in the absence of windows and left Naruto in an antsy mood.

This place reminded him of the evacuation shelters beneath the Hokage Mountain but _worse_.

“Quiet!” Morino-san barked out the order, voice as imposing as the rest of him. A hushed silence fell over the group and the man clasped his hands behind his back.

“My name is Morino Ibike, and I will be your proctor for the first exam. The transition from genin to chūnin is the simplest promotion to achieve in any given shinobi’s career but,” he paused, sweeping his eyes over everyone. “Make no mistake. This will not be easy, and the _vast_ majority of you will not make it past my test.”

Naruto stood up straighter at the challenge, anticipation building.

“That being said, in order to move on to the second exam all you will need is a token!” Iruka-sensei called from the back of the group. He made his way around the crowd, dozens of heads following his progress. “But _getting_ that token is the challenge.” He reached the front to stand next to Ibike and clasped his hands behind his back as well and offering a bow. “I am Umino Iruka, honored to be your co-proctor for this exam.”

“This test will be divided into multiple parts,” Ibike said and snapped his fingers.

Naruto blinked as he felt the brief disruption in his chakra that came with an interrupted genjutsu. Desks appeared lining the cavern’s walls, each waist high with a lockbox resting on it. Naruto felt uneasy that he had not felt the illusion at all.

From the look on Ayano’s, Natsuko’s, and most of the other genin’s faces, he was not alone.

“The second you walked in this room, you were randomly assigned to one of these desks.” Iruka-sensei formed a hand seal and names appeared above each of the desks in green, glowing text. Naruto spotted his name nearby, but could not see either of his teammates. Out of curiosity, he tried to disrupt the genjutsu with a burst of chakra, but the names didn’t disappear.

“Fuinjutsu,” Ayano whispered, eyes wide and smile lighting up the same way it did whenever she something she thought was awesome, Which, Naruto lamented, usually meant something boring. “It has to be.”

“Really? That’s pretty rare,” Natsuko said out of the corner of her mouth, eyes still forward.

“It could be Jiraiya-sama’s work!” Ayano said in an excited hush. Her hands flexed and Naruto guessed she would dive into studying whatever was going on if she could.

“Inside each chest lies one of three clues to your team’s two tokens,” Iruka-sensei continued. “And to unlock the chest, you will have to answer a question that will test your shinobi knowledge.”

Naruto tensed. Iruka-sensei’s tests _always_ kicked his ass unless he studied a _ton_ , but there had been no warning this time.

“No fair.” He grumbled under his breath.

“You will have ten minutes at your desk,” Ibike said, picking up the lecture. “And then an hour to locate your tokens in the village and return through that door.” He pointed back the way they came. “Or you fail.” Ibike smirked at the last word, letting out a sliver of killing intent that gave Naruto the chills.

“Go!” Iruka-sensei called and Naruto shared a quick glance with his teammates before they bolted in different directions. The second Naruto got within a meter of his desk he froze and almost freaked out.

Everything outside a meter wide semicircle around the desk blurred until Naruto could only make out vague people-like blobs of color, and all the noise he heard seconds before sounded like it had been slammed behind a heavy door. Naruto pressed a wary hand to the air and found something invisible blocking his way.

He took a calming breath, pushing instinctual panic to the side because Iruka-sensei would not _really_ put him in danger, and approached his desk. Both it and the chest were shaped out of the same plain wood as the floor. The chest had no latch that Naruto could see, but instead had characters inscribed in the wood right above where one should have been.

“A shinobi’s most powerful tool,” Naruto read and felt the weight of the world roll off his shoulders. Iruka-sensei’s strongest lesson ingrained in Naruto’s memory.

He stood proud, and proclaimed in a confident voice, “Their mind!”

Nothing happened.

“What the hell?” Naruto lifted the chest up, finding it weighed less than a kilogram, and shook it around to see if anything happened. He heard something inside bouncing around, but the container did not open. He slammed it back onto the desk with enough force to jar his arms, but the wood did not give.

Glaring at his target, Naruto flipped through hand seals and took a deep breath. Maybe Iruka-sensei had been wrong and jutsus were the most important thing like Naruto had thought?

“Fūton: Daitoppa!” Wind burst from his lungs and whipped into the air, blowing the chest against the back wall with a crashing _thunk_ and sending it bouncing around the invisible barriers faster than Naruto could track.

Until it cracked off the back of his skull, sending him flying to the floor with tears pooling in his eyes.

He rolled to sit up, rubbing at the back of his head with a wince, and his hand came away bloody. He cursed, glad for the privacy-bubble-seal-thing for the first time, and glared at the offending hunk of wood laying at his feet.

“A box is _not_ going to stop me,” Naruto said, worrying how much time he had left. If he let his teammates down here, he didn’t know how he could face them.

He reached for the chest, thinking that _maybe_ he just had to channel chakra into it, but the moment his hand touched it, Naruto felt chakra coming _from_ the container.

“What?” He pulled his hand back and watched, dumbfounded, as a break in the wood appeared in the middle of a bloody thumbprint he left beneath the engraved question. He looked back and forth between his hand and the box, wondering how _blood_ could be a shinobi’s most powerful tool.

It left him unsettled, but did not stop him from opening the chest to find a tiny scroll the size of his thumb resting at the bottom. It was marked with a number two, and rolled open to reveal a single sentence.

“ _In the shadow of the Shadow._ ”

“What the hell does that mean?” Naruto asked just as the blurry barrier around him fell, and the noise of a cavern full of shinobi slammed back to normal levels.

“The time can’t be up yet, I…”

“I was just about…”

“…so not fair!”

Complaints overrode the excited calls of victory, and Naruto clutched his scroll in a tightened fist, scanning the room for his teammates and hoping they had gotten as lucky as he had.

“Quiet!” Ibiki shouted and the noise died down in a grumbling whine. “If you haven’t figured out the first part, _tough_.”

“You have one hour left,” Iruka-sensei said, holding up an oversized stopwatch the size of his head. “And remember, there is _no_ fighting allowed between teams this round!”

A fresh wave of whispering met Iruka-sensei’s words and Naruto spared a glance toward his fellow genin, wondering how many of them had a better idea how to find their tokens than he did. The fire of his competitive spirit blazed as his old teacher clicked the stopwatch with a shouted “Go!”

Most of the genin shot off toward the doors or in a run around the cavern in a rush to find their teammates and save as much time as possible, but Naruto fought the urge to join them and _waited_.

Natsuko broke through the crowd less than a minute later, her face pinched in a wince. Naruto grimaced in sympathy. The girl only ever looked like that when battling with a headache from her sensing.

“Come on,” his teammate said, voice steady despite whatever pain she felt. “Ayano’s near the back of the cavern.”

“Let’s go!” He grabbed his teammate’s wrist and dove into the sea of shinobi.

\---

Ayano secluded herself in the back of the cavernous hall, but her teammates found her less than a minute after Iruka-sensei unleashed chaos in the form of swarming genin. Natsuko spotted her first, of course, and dragged their blonde teammate over. Judging from the girl’s expression, Ayano assumed she was either suffering from an overload to her chakra sense, or hadn’t gotten a riddle scroll.

When she plopped down on the ground and hung her head in her palms, Ayano guessed it was both.

She frowned and wordlessly held up the tiny scroll and Naruto flashed a grin as he held up a bloodstained one of his own. Her eyebrow quirked in surprise, but she held back a comment to spare Naruto’s feelings.

“So we have two,” she said, grabbing Naruto’s scroll and comparing it to her own. Other than bearing the number two rather than three, it was identical to her own.

“Eh, Natsuko?” Naruto asked, but the brunette shook her head. Her face relaxed as more genin left the immediate area.

“Knew the answer, couldn’t figure out how to use it to open the damned thing.”

“It was a bit roundabout,” Ayano commented, pulling Naruto’s scroll open to read.

“I still don’t get how blood is the most important thing a ninja has,” Naruto said, crossing his arms. Ayano blinked, glancing up to the blonde and finding he was serious.

“It isn’t,” she said, and poked at her temple. “It’s your mind. Iruka-sensei and Rin-sensei always say so.”

“I _knew_ Iruka-sensei didn’t lie to me!”

“How did that open your box?” Natsuko asked, frowning. “Everything I tried didn’t work.”

“I guess you had to know a little bit about fuinjutsu?” Ayano asked more than said. When she figured out the engraved question, it had seemed so obvious. “Know that blood is used a lot?”

“Using your head to figure out the situation, shit…” Natsuko shook her head again. “Sorry guys.”

“Don’t worry! I only solved mine because I got, er, really lucky.” Naruto ran a hand along the back of his neck, sheepish.

Ayano shelved the question _that_ brought up until later and read both scrolls.

“ _In the shadow of the Shadow_ ,” she read and frowned. The new clue did not clarify hers. “ _See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil._ ”

“Those… really don’t say much.” Natusko tilted her head to the side thinking.

“I hate riddles,” Ayano agreed, closing her eyes and trying to think. She wondered if the third piece would give them the context they needed.

“Shadow, shadow….” Naruto mused aloud, and Ayano thought it was easier place to start.

“Something with the Nara clan, maybe?”

“It would have be something to do with Konoha, so that could work,” Natsuko agreed. “But what type of shadow gives off a shadow?”

“Could be a metaphor,” Ayano suggested.

“Darkness?”

“That could tie into the ‘see no evil’ part, but what about the hearing?”

“Maybe deep water?”

“That’s a bit of a stretch…”

“Got anything better?”

“I…” _Need the third clue_. Ayano trailed off rather than speak her mind and sighed. Natusko clicked her tongue against her teeth, agitated.

“Is there somewhere in Konoha that’s _really_ isolated?”

Ayano frowned as the other girl tried digging into the second clue. “Depends on if isolated means far away from everything, or just really, _really_ secure.”

“I don’t think they would put the tokens somewhere where people wouldn’t be allowed, _especially_ foreigners.”

Ayano ran her hands through her hair, urging her brain to work. “So the clues should still be general enough for—”

“The Hokage!” Naruto shouted, breaking his silence with an excited grin. Ayano and Natsuko blinked at him, nonplussed.

“What does Sandaime-sama have to do with this?” Ayano had faith her teammate could come up with his surprising moments of brilliance, but could not follow his logic.

“Not the old man,” Naruto said with a dismissive wave. “The _word_. It means fire shadow!”

“Of course you would know that,” Natsuko said dryly.

“I know _everything_ about all the Hokages!” Naruto boasted with his impossibly bright smile.

“One of the shadows was capitalized.” Ayano pressed two fingers between her eyebrows with her eyes cinched shut. She took deep breaths to calm herself down, willing her head to get past her fluster. “I can’t believe I missed that.”

“So something in the shadow of the Hokage that can’t see or hear,” Natsuko said, frustration still evident in her tone. “That doesn’t really help that much.”

“It’s more than what we knew before,” Ayano said. “But I wonder if it is a literal shadow or...” she trailed off with a shrug.

Naruto snapped his fingers and his eyes sparkled. “It has to be about the Nidaime!”

“I don’t follow.”

Naruto pulled a face. “Don’t you guys remember the stories? Senju Tobirama was an awesome shinobi, just never as amazing as his brother because he could never use the wood element.” Naruto bounced on the balls of his feet and Ayano had trouble reconciling her fight-first minded teammate getting excited over something so academic.

“I didn’t think you paid attention in history,” Natsuko admitted.

Naruto waved her off.

“I didn’t! But I read everything about the Hokages. Everything about the old man Tobirama was how he couldn’t ever get out from the Shodaime’s shadow!”

Ayano frowned. The logic followed, but…

“How many times did you read the Hokages’ biographies?” she asked.

“A _lot_ after Iruka-sensei told me about how the old man got to be Hokage.”

Ayano winced, kicking herself for underestimating Naruto. She should have known better by this point.

“It’s better than anything else we have.” Natsuko tapped her staff against the ground, considering. “Is there anything left of Nidaime-sama other than the mountain?”

_See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil_. Ayano’s eyes widened and her hand shot out to clap Natsuko on the shoulder. “If Naruto’s right, it’ll _have_ to be the Hokage Monument. Eyes that don’t see. Ears that don’t hear.”

The three teammates shared a look and Ayano saw the same anticipation of victory she felt flare in both Natsuko and Naruto. In a move of unspoken agreement, they raced off at the same time, leaving the testing hall behind and breaking out into the light of day.

The monument carved directly into the cliff face was a short run away from the academy, but as they left the ground and sped along the rooftops, Ayano could spot dozens of their competitor teams running around with a rushed urgency. When they went vertical up the mountainside, Ayano found the scene repeated throughout the entire village.

“Think we might be first?” Natsuko shouted her question as they rounded up the Nidaime’s chin.

“Maybe, but I don’t think it matters!” As long as they finished within the timeframe, Ayano would call it a win.

“The hell it doesn’t!” Naruto called, pulling ahead of her and Natsuko by leaping _over_ the length of Tobirama-sama’s nose. “I want to see the looks on everyone’s faces when we beat them all!”

“Don’t go putting a target on our back, idiot!”

“It’s really not a good idea this early, Naruto!” Ayano called, but Naruto was already dashing across Tobirama-sama’s left eye, yelling in jubilation as he scooped up something in his hand that glinted in the sunlight. Natsuko sprinted after their blonde teammate, but Ayano spotted another reflective glare from the Nidaime’s right eye and ran to investigate.

A silver coin embossed with Konoha’s leaf sigil was stuck in the middle of where Ayano assumed Tobirama-sama’s pupil would be. A quick spark of chakra into the metal released it from the stone and Ayano held it aloft toward her teammates with a grin to rival Naruto’s best.

“Naruto, you are a genius!” Natsuko pulled their teammate into a fierce hug, nearly toppling both of them down to the power of gravity.

“Eh, I just got lucky.”

“Either way, you’re the reason we were able to find these!” Ayano climbed the rest of the way to the top of Tobirama-sama’s head and spun to face the village, arms wide. The tangled net of anxious doubt and nervous energy that had sat in her chest since the moment Rin-sensei handed her a leaf and told her to set it on fire unwound into the blissful glee of success. This first part of exam was meant to be the easiest. The challenges ahead would likely rate higher than most her team had faced before, but they had gotten over the first hump.

They could _do_ this.

She tilted her head back and shouted her joy to echo across the village for all their opponents to hear.

“Er, Ayano?” Naruto asked, giving her strange look mirrored on Natsuko’s face as the two joined her on top of the world. “Are you alright?”

“I’m great,” she said, bouncing on her toes. “We’re going to pass this exam! All of it!”

“Hell yeah!” Naruto agreed, pumping up a fist into the air.

“Not if we don’t get back,” Natsuko said, still looking nonplussed.

“Right, well.” Ayano took a breath, trying to bottle her cheer for a better time.

“Let’s go then!” Naruto _leapt_ off of the statue’s head, a laughing yell trailing in his wake. Ayano and Natsuko shared a look, shrugged, and bounded after him.

They passed both the strange team from Kirigakure with the pretty genin – Haku, she remembered - and Team Asuma on the way down – the teams climbing up toward Hashirama-sama and Minato-sama respectively – and Ayano wondered if they should have stuck around to check for other tokens. To maybe thin out the competition before things got too intense…

“Better hurry up, dog breath!” Naruto shouted toward Kiba as he and Akamaru led Chōji and Shikamaru up the vertical climb. “Or I won’t have the chance to beat you for the rest of the exam!” The Inuzuka shouted something back that Ayano couldn’t hear but left Naruto laughing.

“This competition is certainly heating up!” Haku called from the other side as her team climbed at a much more sedate pace. “I look forward to challenging you!” She waved at them, serene as could be.

“See you on the other side!” Ayano felt compelled to respond, earning a soft smile from the foreign ninja.

“Good luck finding your tokens, Haku-chan!” Naruto called and Haku blinked, surprised, but her response was lost to the wind as their momentum left them too far apart to respond.

They did not pass any more teams on the way back to the academy, and Ayano could not figure out if that was a good sign or a bad.

Iruka-sensei and Morino-san waited at the bottom of the steps they had led the genin down earlier in the day. Both wore matching expressions as if they had just eaten something sour and stood sentinel alongside the closed double doors that led to the hall proper.

“Iruka-sensei, we have our tokens!” Naruto held up his with a wide grin.

Ayano thought she saw Iruka-sensei’s lips quirk toward a smile, but otherwise neither shinobi regarded them with any sort of recognition. She held the coin she held up as well, and Morino-san broke the silence.

“Congratulations on passing this section of the first exam,” he said with a heavy dose of bored dismissal.

All of Ayano’s insecurities threatened to come rushing back.

“But now comes the final test,” Iruka-sensei said, sounding more serious than Ayano had ever heard him. “You must choose which two of you will move on to the second exam.”

Coming from anyone but Iruka-sensei, Ayano imagined Naruto would have railed against the idea with a shouted objection. Instead he looked as if he had taken a blow straight to the gut, mouth flapping without a sound.

Natsuko seemed torn between disbelief and devastation with her hands balled into white knuckled fists and her head hung low, brown hair shielding her face. She had failed to get her clue, and the guilt from that may have kept her from thinking clearly.

So Ayano spoke for them.

“We all go through,” she said, keeping her voice as level as she could and trying desperately not to tremble or flinch under the intensity of Morino-san’s attention. “Or none of us.”

It was Rin-sensei’s bell test all over again. It _had_ to be.

“Is that so?”

“We succeeded as a _team_.” Ayano spared a glance to Natsuko, trying to convey her support without speaking it. The girl looked startled. “What type of chūnin would we be if we betrayed our teammates?” Her heart thundered in her chest, afraid she’d made the wrong call and just doomed them all to failure.

“Ayano’s right!” Naruto snapped out of his daze and jutted his chin toward the adults. He opened his mouth to continue, but Iruka-sensei broke out into a smile and landed a hand on the blonde’s head, cutting him off.

“Good answers,” he said, sounding like the jovial teacher Ayano remembered.

“Congratulations,” Morino-san said. If Ayano stared at his face, hard, she thought she might be able to see the start of a smile forming.

Maybe.

“Team Twelve passes!” The door behind Iruka-sensei and Morino-san opened, revealing that they were _far_ from the first team to finish as they joined the throng of genin within.

It did not stop Naruto from cheering at the top of his lungs, wrapping an arm around both her and the shocked Natsuko’s shoulders and pulling them into a celebratory hug. Ayano laughed along with her teammate, her enthusiasm returning twofold.

“We’re getting looks,” Natsuko said, starting to look like her usual self again. She made no move to get out of the impromptu group hug, though, and began to smile.

Their elation lasted for all of twenty minutes until a kunoichi burst up through the ground in the middle of the room while riding a black, crimson, and gold striped snake the height of a horse and thrice the length. Her purple hair sat in a ponytail that somehow spiked _up_ , while leaving enough loose to frame her face, and she wore a trench coat over a plain brown skirt and skintight mesh armor over her torso and down to her knees, leaving _very_ little to the imagination.

Ayano’s thoughts grinded to a halt in both shock and awe.

“Hello, brats!” The woman called with a cheery wave. Half the genin in the room had almost attacked her on sight while most of the rest were staring at her in disbelief, but the kunoichi seemed to take it in stride as the right side of her lips twitched up into cocky smirk. “I’m Mitarashi Anko, the proctor of the Second Exam! Before we begin, Hokage-sama has _asked_ that I warn you all that if you decide to continue on with the exam, you might end up dead!”

She paused for a moment for dramatic effect, but Ayano did not think anyone had recovered enough from her entrance for the kunoichi’s words to sink in.

“But if you think you’re ready, follow me!”

The snake took off toward the doors leading to daylight, and Team Twelve paused just long enough to glance at each other and shrug before they gave chase along with their fellow genin.

Ayano held the suspicion that the second exam would be a bit more _direct_ than the first…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the alternate first exam!
> 
> A test of patience, followed by a philosophical question - of which the answer was only a clue, and required observation of their environment to solve - in turn followed by a three-part riddle leading to a somewhat-glorified scavenger hunt, all leading up to a test of comradeship. Each, in my view, an important aspect of the shinobi lifestyle.
> 
> For those without knowledge of Konoha, or with less on-the-nose clues, it would have also tested each participant's information gathering skills as well. Naruto just happens to be our resident genius in regards to the Hokage (no small part harkening back to chapter one when Iruka drilled it into his head to figure out what it actually took to get his hands on the hat).
> 
> Anyway, second exam is up next. It will take place in the Forest of Death, but the hows and whats will be shuffled about even if the where remains the same.
> 
> Looking forward to hearing your feedback!


	12. The Hand We're Dealt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello all and welcome to the start of the second exam! This one's not changed as dramatically as the first, but there will still be a whole new series of challenges for Naruto and company to go through as they try to survive the infamous Forest of Death. Team Twelve is about to get a decent gauge on where they actually stand in the ninja world...

When their new proctor led them to the field outside the overbearing walls of training ground forty-four, Natsuko’s stomach twisted into a knot of anxiety. Konoha sported dozens and dozens of training grounds for the use of its shinobi, and every one of them after the thirtieth was made to reflect a unique environment so Konoha’s forces could be prepared for countless numbers of scenarios.

Forty-four distinguished itself as one of the few training areas that was _forbidden_ for use without the express consent of the Hokage. Her parents had come back from a “war game” some years back in the worst condition Natsuko had ever seen them at that point in her life. Whenever she and her brother asked what happened, they would only ever say that the training ground had earned its nickname.

“The Forest of Death!” Miturashi Anko stood on the top of her snake summon’s head with her fists on her hips and a chilling grin on her lips. “For the next five days, this place will be both your home and your hell.”

“Shit,” Ayano cursed under her breath as urgent whispering broke out around them at the jōnin’s proclamation. Natsuko guessed they all had the same realization she just had.

None of them were prepared for an extended mission.

She thought Anko had to be using a genjutsu to make her smile look that intimidating as she overlooked her flock of panicking genin.

“She’s really creepy,” Naruto muttered, narrowing his eyes on their proctor. Natsuko couldn’t disagree.

“But being lucky enough to survive to the end of day five won’t be enough. You will need to find a secret location within the forest and use these to gain access!”

The purple-haired woman pulled five cards from her trench coat’s pocket and held them out like a poker hand. There was a kanji character on each that Natsuko could not make out from her spot so far away in the crowd, but the five cards were each a unique color. Blue, red, white, yellow, and brown.

“There are five basic natures of elemental chakra,” Anko explained and pointed off to each card in turn. “Water, fire, wind, lightning, and earth. When different elements are combined, they become more powerful than any alone.” She lined the cards up into a single pile. “Once one of each of these elemental cards is combined, they will reveal the location of the finish line.

“Every single one of you will be given a card and your team’s starting position,” she continued and waved toward a half dozen shinobi sitting at a table set far off to the left. “Once you sign your waiver dismissing Konoha from all responsibility when you inevitably get injured or die.”

A sober silence overtook the crowd of genin and Natsuko had to keep herself from fidgeting in nervous anticipation.

“The test begins in one hour, and anyone who’s not ready to begin will automatically fail! So I suggest you get your waivers signed and get your asses to your starting points as soon as possible.”

Anko flashed them another grin, clapped her hands, and disappeared in a puff of smoke along with her summon. A beat of silence passed as everyone seemed frozen in place, but a mad dash for the shinobi with the waivers began as soon as one of the genin from Kusagakure made the first move.

Ayano latched onto both Natsuko’s and Naruto’s shoulders before either could join the throng of people.

“What gives, Ayano?”

“What are you doing?” Natsuko demanded with a worry driven impatience. “That line’s going to take forever and we need to have enough time—”

Ayano cut her off. “I know, Natsuko, but I have a plan.” The redhead grinned the way she did whenever she thought of something she thought was clever and Natsuko let herself relax despite the rush of their opponents running past them.

“Naruto, make a bunch of shadow clones.”

“Why?” He asked with a quizzical look over his shoulder to their competitors now all in queue.

“Send them one to gather supplies for each of us, and the rest to the library and the mission building to see what you can find on the Forest of Death. Bring it _all_.”

A grin split Naruto’s face and a half dozen clones popped into existence behind him, racing off back into the village to give Team Twelve a perfectly fair advantage.

“You’re brilliant, Ayano.”

The redhead flashed her a grin. “I know, come on.” She dragged them both into line, and Natsuko did her best to ignore the looks of varying hostility the other genin were sending their way.

Some of the other teams sent a member to sprint out of the field as well, and Natsuko wondered what their chances were in gathering a decent amount of supplies and still being back in time to sign in.

It took up most of the hour for them to reach the front of the line, where a beleaguered chūnin with her messy hair pulled back in a loose tail and had fingerprints smudged over her glasses greeted them with mild annoyance.

“Team Rin?” She asked, checking their shinobi identifications and checking off something on a massive scroll she had. “You will be starting from gate twenty-nine.” She did not explain where the gate _was_. “And here are your cards. Please do not open them before the exam begins or you will fail.” She slid three black envelopes over the table toward them and turned her attention to the next team, already repeating the same instructions.

“Attitudes like that piss me off…” Naruto grumbled, holding his envelope up toward the sun and squinting. The light did not filter through.

“She did have to go through hundreds of us,” Ayano said, craning her neck in the direction of a sign hanging over the only gate Natsuko could see. A bold **“1”** was carved into it.

“Three guesses which way counts up?”

They went clockwise at a good pace, and Naruto made and dismissed another clone to make sure the rest would know where to find them. By the time they reached gate twenty-nine and Naruto’s clones caught up to them, they had only five minutes to spare.

Natsuko shrugged on her backpack, finding it weighed exactly as much as it typically did when she packed it herself. She blinked in surprise and noticed a note pinned to the strap over her left shoulder.

_Good luck, kid._

Her brother’s handwriting lifted Natsuko’s spirit in a flash, filling her with a boosted confidence.

“Did you pack the world?” Ayano complained, frowning as she hunched beneath an overstuffed bag that was wider around than the girl who wore it.

Naruto scratched his chin as his clones dispersed.

“Your mom, er, _helped_ me pack.” He said, sheepish.

“Of course she did,” Ayano said with a sigh, shaking her head. “Well, what’d you get for recon?”

Naruto dug into his backpack and pulled out a scroll that stood as tall as Natsuko’s knees. He unfurled it to reveal a topographical map of a forest ringed by a wall. Natsuko squinted and found gate twenty-nine at the westernmost gate on the map.

Then Anko’s amplified force shouted “Begin!” and the gate swung open fully before starting to close on their own.

The three genin exchanged glances and raced into the second exam.

\---

“Two fires and a lightning,” Ayano said and chewed on her bottom lip and flipping the red card she held between her fingers. She had not considered the possibility that there would be repeat cards within a team. It meant they had more types of cards to find, but they also had a small amount of leeway…

“So what’s the play?” Natsuko asked. “There’s so much _life_ here that I can hardly focus my sensing.”

 _Damn._ Ayano tried to not let her disappointment show. She had been counting on Natsuko’s abilities to help give them an edge. She bit her bottom lip in thought.

“Most of the other teams weren’t able to get supplies, right?” She said at length, thinking out loud. “Where’s the nearest river or stream between here and another gate, Naruto?”

The blond unfurled the map once, flattening it against the curve if a tree trunk.

“Looks like there’s one a half kilometer southeast, and another northeast. Gates twenty-eight and thirty.” Naruto looked in either direction, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“I think I might be able to sense people if they get closer,” Natsuko said, giving Ayano no hint on which direction would be best for them to choose.

She took a steadying breath and fell back on the tried and true method of guessing.

“Let’s head south then.”

They raced through the ridiculously-sized trees at breakneck speed to beat any of their opponents to the watering hole. Rumblings, growls, and squawks echoed through the forest, sounding as if the animals they came from matched the flora in being thoroughly oversized. Ayano kept a sharp eye for any would be predator as much as she looked for their opponents.

Shinobi training or not, she had no desire to fight a humongous tiger, bear, or spider.

The ‘stream’ marked on the map proved to be a five meter wide river chugging along at a lazy pace, sourced from a mouth of a cave that spelled danger to anyone stupid enough to have the urge for spelunking. It ran south, winding through the woods and out of sight.

“Alright,” Ayano said. “Naruto, did you pack all of my flashbang seals?”

Her teammate nodded, grinning.

“Well, let’s set up a trap,” Natsuko said, her brows furrowed and her eyes closed. “Either a team of ninjas will be here in a few minutes, or a group of animals with a lot of chakra…”

Ayano let the relief she had picked the right plan relax her for only a moment before focusing. “Get ‘em in the net.”

The three genin raced in different directions, Naruto making clones to send downriver and both Natsuko and Ayano trailing ninja wire between the trunks of four trees, making a semi-circle wall of the deadly cable until Ayano was certain it could not be escaped without injury.

They doubled down on the trap by lacing it with Ayano’s flashbangs and Natsuko flooding the ground with earth-chakra in an improved version of her **Nebari no Numa** jutsu.

“They’re almost to Naruto.”

Ayano nodded to her teammate. “Let’s get in position then.”

They took to the trees and embraced one of Rin-sensei’s most important lessons: patience.

Ayano’s heart raced as she strained her ears for any sign of combat. The white noise of the forest persisted for long, long seconds before Naruto shouted a battle cry dozens of times over and was met with the surprised shouts of their would-be prey. Ayano saw the trees bending at unnatural angles before she heard the howling wind as Naruto’s clones combined their **Daitoppa** technique into a maelstrom.

Three shinobi tumbled through the trees onto the river, put off by the attack. The barrage of Naruto’s clones did not let up, appearing on all sides of the enemy team save for the path leading to the trap. Ayano guessed the genin had to be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers as they retreated rather than standing their ground, only sending kunai and senbon toward their attackers.

They managed to dispel several clones, but Naruto proved fantastic at corralling their enemies where they needed to go.

“What the hell?”

Ayano held back a smirk as the first genin sank into the mud to mid-calf, almost toppling over as his momentum came to an abrupt stop. His teammates heeded his misfortune and stopped short, but Naruto caught them with a half dozen clones and twice as many kunai, forcing them to opt for the mud over multiple stab wounds.

“You have two options!” Ayano shouted down to their prey. Three disgruntled genin jerked their attention away from the gaggle of grinning Naruto’s up toward Ayano, and she found each wore the hatai-ite of Takigakure.

She wondered if Fū had come to the exam as well, but put it out of mind for now.

“Either you can give up your cards, or I can blow you to hell.” She gestured toward the flashbang seals and felt a pang of nostalgia for Rin-sensei’s bell test. Had that only been a few months ago?

Three indecisive faces glanced at each other, debating without speaking.

“They’re using chakra to break free of the mud,” Natsuko said, tone sounding forced in its boredom.

“Then let’s make this quick!” Ayano put on her best smirk before continuing, “five, four, three…”

“ **Doton: Ishi no Kimera**!”

Ayano cursed as two of the genin slammed their hands to the ground at the same time, voices crying in unison. The earth moved at their command, a two-headed, winged beast three times the size of its genin creators rising from the same mud that kept the team trapped.

 _Someone’s going to be tricked by the flashbangs, someday,_ Ayano lamented.

“Plan B!” Naruto yelled, sending his clones into the mud pit to take on their opponents’ earthen construct.

Ayano rolled her eyes and called up her chakra into a great fireball aimed square at the back of the beast, paying no heed to the clones in her attack’s path. The fire bit into the muddy flesh, baking it into clay until it crackled and chipped away, but the chimera did not stop moving forward. It bit and swung wide claws against the swarm of orange attackers.

“It’s getting deeper!” the genin not controlling the earth technique cried out as he sank further into the mud. Ayano spotted Natsuko just beyond the web of ninja wire hands dug into the ground up to her elbows, sweat pouring down her reddened face.

“Eyes!” Ayano shouted a split second before sending a pulse of chakra to the tags encircling the trap, blinding the area with a thunderous _boom_ and a light brighter than the sun. Panicked cursing and screaming from the trapped genin met the commotion and Ayano dropped from the trees, using nothing but her memory to aim a blow with a back of her kunai.

Metal _cracked_ against flesh and bone, cutting off the cries of the center genin. She did not pause to consider the boy’s fate before pouring chakra into her feet to scuttle over the mud toward his teammates, intending to knock them out but finding them already unconscious beneath each of her teammates.

It took too many moments for Ayano’s heartbeat to calm down and her brain to kick into gear enough to realize they had won the fight.

“Yatta!” Naruto pumped a fist into the air in unison with his few remaining clones.

“That was… easier than expected,” Natsuko said.

“They weren’t that strong.” Naruto kicked at the remnants of the mud chimera, dusting the baked clay with ease. “But that was an awesome jutsu!”

“But it took two of them to do it,” Ayano said, glancing around them. “That light might have gotten someone’s attention. We should move.”

“I don’t sense anyone coming.”

“Still, just in case.” Ayano leapt back up to the trees, gathering up the ninja wire and lamenting the loss of her tags. “Find their cards!”

They were on the move within a minute - proud owners of a new water elemental card, a second lightning, and a third fire - and left their opponents unconscious in the mud.

Ayano wondered if any of the cards were more common than others and hoped against it. Their fire cards would be worth much less leverage if that were the case.

“Where should we head next?” Naruto asked from her left. Natsuko looked to her in askance from her right and Ayano wondered when it was decided that she would be team leader and who was responsible for that decision.

The weight of responsibility settled in her chest, hugging her thundering heart.

“Let’s just keep moving. Natsuko, try to find someone with your senses. Naruto, send out clones to scout.” She hid her nerves as best she could as her teammates did as she asked.

Ayano hoped their apparent faith was not misplaced.

\---

Naruto rested in the crux between branch and tree, staring up into the canopy in the hope to catch a glimpse of open sky while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. After the rush of finding their first opponents within the first hour of the second exam, Team Twelve spent hour after hour running through the forest and coming against nothing more dangerous than a grove of giant butterflies.

Which had been more annoying than anything else.

He shook his head, sending pollen flying into the night air from his hair.

Naruto grumbled, waving the offending dust away before Ayano could rip into him for setting off her allergies _again_.

His teammate’s rested further down the wide branch, content to let him take last watch. They looked peaceful in their sleep and Naruto wondered if they would be less on edge in the mor—

Naruto’s train of thought cut off as Natsuko sat bolt upright from a dead sleep, eyes wide and fearful. She turned her attention to him and her fear morphed into confusion as she closed her eyes and rubbed at her temples.

“What’s going on?” Naruto asked in a whisper, shuffling down the branch to sit next to his teammate.

“I thought I sensed,” she started to say, but trailed off, shaking her head. “It was like Taki, but somehow worse. I swear I felt it before, but—“

She snapped her head around, looking off into the distance, worry etching into her features.

“Something’s going on over there. Bad,” she said with absolute certainty. Naruto made up his mind in an instant.

“Then we should go check it out!”

Natsuko looked at him like he’d grown an extra three heads and Ayano stirred from her sleep, blinking owlishly at the pair of them.

“What’s up?” Ayano managed to roll onto her feet, look more alert by the second.

“Someone’s in trouble,” Naruto said, starting to stretch. “We’re going to help.”

“Oh?”

“Whatever’s going on is _bad_.” Natsuko hugged herself. “It’s like with Taki, but way worse,” she repeated.

Ayano frowned and Naruto got ready to argue his case, but the redhead surprised him by agreeing with him.

“We should go see what’s going on,” she said. “See if we can get a chance at any cards.”

“I think it’s a bad idea,” Natsuko said, but still climbed to her feet and readied her staff in a white-knuckled grip.

“If it looks bad, we don’t have to get involved.”

Naruto waved away their concern.

“Whatever it is, we can handle it. Let’s go!”

He took to the air, jumping between branches with as much stealth as he could muster while maintaining speed. He couldn’t near his teammates behind him, but knew them well enough to know they would be flanking him, just behind.

It was just under a kilometer before they came upon a scene that stole the cheer from Naruto’s blood and setting it to boil.

The creepy kid that attacked Konohamaru the day before stood on one side of a small clearing with his siblings flanking him. Sand whirled around the Suna genin in a wind Naruto couldn’t feel. Ayano and Natsuko landed beside him, and their quiet gasps gave away their thoughts on the scene.

At the feet of the three foreign ninja were two piles of sand soaked through with crimson that could only be blood, and the redheaded Kusagakure kunoichi – Karin – Naruto remembered from the checkpoint scrambling away from them on all fours.

“Yeah,” Kankuro said with a deep grimace. “You’re going to want to hand over your cards now.”

“If you have a wind, Gaara might even let you go.”

“Mother demands blood,” Gaara said in monotone, staring at the cowering girl in contempt.

“Or not,” his sister said, sounding more resigned than threatening.

The swirling sand flowed toward the redhead and Naruto moved without thinking, launching toward Gaara with as much as speed as he could manage off his jump. None of the three saw him and he reared back a fist to hit the foreign genin straight across the jaw.

A shield of sand rushed to Gaara’s defense despite his distraction and Naruto’s fist was caught in the earthen defense, stopping his momentum dead in its tracks. Four sets of eyes turned their attention to him – one in hope, the rest in shock – and Naruto flipped his momentum into an overhead kick to free his fist. His next blow was met by the same shielding sand and the blond genin twisted himself away to stand between the Suna shinobi and the smart-mouthed girl from Kusa.

“You’re the one from yesterday,” Kankuro said, sweat dripping down his brow.

“W-why?” Karin asked, and Naruto felt her eyes burning holes in the back of his head. He kept his focus on the three in front of him while he answered.

“Because you needed help.”

It was all the reason he needed, really.

“You are a fool,” Gaara said, surprise and incredulity in his voice. The moonlight played games with the shadows, making the foreign genin look both terrifying and vulnerable in turns.

Natsuko held her position, Naruto noticed, but Ayano had circled around to the other side of the clearing, flanking the enemy team. He did not need to have Natsuko’s sensing ability to know that both of his teammates were less than eager to fight the Suna team.

So he tried to talk them down.

“You guys already won this fight,” he said, trying to smile and failing. “Why don’t you take your cards and go?”

The sand in the two piles of _pulp_ moved, drawing back toward Gaara without the stain of blood. The only remainder of the two shinobi the streams carried were their ninja cars – one lightning and the other earth – but otherwise seemed untouched by the blood they had spilled.

“Still missing the fifth,” Gaara said in his monotone, which was somehow enough for all of Naruto’s hackles to raise. Gaara’s sand inched forward, and Naruto formed the ram seal, his chakra coiled to make a ridiculous number of clones.

“What type of card do you have!?” Natsuko shouted the question with a disarming ferocity that had Naruto flinching. He heard the girl behind him shuffle, snapping out of her fear to answer.

“E-earth!” She said, and Naruto heard her dig through her clothes. He guessed she was searching for the card to prove her point.

“Then there’s no reason for this fight!” Natusko continued, jumping down to stand next to Naruto. She held her hands out in front of her, trying to smile. Naruto frowned, but followed his teammate’s lead by not summoning his signature jutsu. “None of us has a wind card.”

Natsuko held up her two fire cards, and Ayano jumped down from the other tree, showing her fire and water cards. Naruto heisted before showing his own pair of lightning cards.

“There’s no reason to fight here, Gaara,” Temari said, casting her eyes to the forest around them. “We should get out of here before they get any more allies.”

“Mother is not satisfied,” Gaara said, and his sand jittered from right to left, agitated.

“She can feast when we find someone holding the last card we need,” Kankuro pointed out.

“I want to kill them _now_!” Gaara shouted, and his sand surged forward. Natsuko and Ayano leapt back, dragging the Kusa girl with them, but Naruto held his ground and unleashed his chakra into a squad of clones ready to attack.

A dozen of his counterparts took the brunt of Gaara’s sand attack, but the remaining ten all matched Naruto in their forming of the **Daitoppa.**

Wind ripped from the arc of Naruto and his clones, throwing away Gaara’s attacking sand with little effort, but the foreign genin brought up a thick shield around him and his teammates that Naruto’s attack could only chip away the edges of.

The moment the gale-force winds ended, the sand lashed out in a whip fast enough that none of the clones were fast enough to dodge. Naruto coughed as the wind was ripped from his lungs by pure force when the whip struck him in the solar plexus, sending him off his feet and crashing back through the trees.

 _Ow…_ Naruto dragged himself to his feet, clutching an arm across his chest that he could already feel beginning to bruise. He had little time to recover as three streams of Gaara’s sand spiraled toward him at a speed that Naruto was hard pressed to dodge. Wood flew in every direction as the jutsu drilled through trees in its pursuit of Naruto.

Using clones to try and stop the attack was just as successful as it had been in Takigakure with Atsuo’s water drill.

He cursed, trying to circle back around toward his teammates. In the glimpses he managed of the rest of the fight, he saw Natsuko playing a desperate shield, using her staff to ward off Gaara’s attacks while both Ayano and the Kusa girl peppered their opponent with kunai – some with explosive tags.

Gaara had not moved from where he stood with his arms crossed, watching them with an impassive boredom as his sand came to his defense every time without any indication from the foreign genin was even _trying_.

Naruto was as impressed as he was terrified, an unstoppable spark of excitement at the challenge urging him forward.

“What the hell _is_ he?” Karin shouted, falling to her knees and staring at Gaara in horror. “His chakra…” She curled in on herself, eyes unseeing.

Naruto frowned at her willingness to give up, but pushed it back with pride as Ayano and Natsuko did not let up despite having to feel the same fear pumping in Naruto’s veins.

“He’s unstoppable!” Naruto would have called Kankuro’s words a boast if not for their lack of bluster. The older genin’s pained face shadowed over with resignation. “You should just give up, this isn’t worth it.”

His sister stood off to the side, her gaze averted, and neither sibling moved to help nor stop their brother.

“Like hell!” Naruto shouted, forming a pair of clones to flank him as he charged back into the clearing straight at Gaara. The boy eyed his approach without flinching, and Naruto had his clones move into a line behind him before he threw chakra into a rushed **Kawarimi.**

He watched from a nearby tree as Gaara’s sand drill killed Naruto’s clones with ease only to disintegrate less than a half meter from the boy’s face.

“You are a fool,” Gaara repeated his assessment, turning his head slightly to look at Naruto in his hiding place. Naruto tsked and leapt out of the woods to join his teammates. Natsuko breathed heavily, leaning on her staff with her chest heaving, and Ayano was not in much better shape.

The foreign girl sat behind them, looking lost.

“We can’t keep this up, Naruto,” Ayano managed to say under her harsh breaths.

“Nothing we do can cut through his defenses.” Natusko shook her head. “We need to make a retreat, I don’t think they’ll follow us.”

Naruto growled in frustration, staring down the foreign ninja who seemed content for the moment to stare at the four of them with his head tilted to the right in thought. Naruto wracked his brain trying to figure out a way to actually hit the Suna genin, and what they would do if the other two joined the fight.

He hated to admit it, but his teammates were probably right.

Still, he wanted to try one more thing.

“You guys start to go,” he said, drawing a kunai. “I want to try one more thing.”

“We’re not about to leave you behind, Naruto,” Ayano said in annoyance. Natsuko echoed her and Naruto felt himself grin.

“Then cover me with kunai.”

His teammates gave him doubtful looks, but followed his request by bombarding Gaara and his siblings with a rain of metal. The older siblings huddled closer to Gaara as his sand caught every projectile with ease. Naruto watched the boy’s expression fall back from curiosity to boredom and he knew he had to attack before Gaara went back on the offensive.

He drew a kunai and worked to mold his chakra around it, separating it and forcing it back together until it ground to a fine edge. Unlike with the leaf exercise, Naruto didn’t try to split the kunai, but surround it in chakra. The blue energy hummed over the weapon from Naruto’s palm and, despite his best efforts, small pieces of metal chipped away with each passing second.

Hoping it would have enough cutting power, Naruto moved to attack.

“You want wind? Have it!”

A barrier of sand rushed to meet the kunai, but the chakra proved it could do the job as it sliced through the defense like rice paper. Naruto noticed Gaara’s eyes widen the smallest of fractions and the blond wore a wicked grin as his opponent was forced to _move_ for the first time in the fight.

The kunai missed Gaara, but Kankuro had not been paying as close attention and stared down at his chest in horror.

He gurgled something that might have been a scream, eyes locked on the kunai buried to the base in his left lung, and collapsed.

“Kankuro!”

The floor fell out beneath Naruto’s brief sense of victory, leaving a dull horror as the results of his attack struck home. He watched Temari fall to her knees next to her brother, hands glowing green and pressing against the weeping wound with panic etched in her expression.

“He’s dying,” Gaara said, watching his siblings with _something_ resembling emotion playing at the edge of his tone.

“Damn it Gaara!” Temari shouted, showing aggression toward her youngest brother for the first time. Fear radiated off the kunoichi in waves as she looked at each of Naruto’s teammates in turn. She reached into the pocket of her shirt and pulled a handful of the elemental cards free, throwing them at Naruto with desperate force.

He caught them out of instinct, still unable to tear his eyes away from the bleeding Kankuro.

“Take those and leave us alone!” Temari shouted at them with a snarl before returning her full attention to her medical jutsu. Gaara seemed enthralled by watching the process, his sand circling the three in a lazy orbit.

Naruto could not get his legs to move.

“We should go,” Ayano whispered, suddenly on his right. Her hand landed on his shoulder and she kept her eyes on the foreign ninja.

“Come on, Kusa-girl.”

He heard Natsuko behind him and chanced a glance to see her throwing Karin’s arm over her shoulder and helping the girl to her feet.

“Naruto,” Ayano said and Naruto turned his half-focused gaze to her. “We have to move.” Concern laced her words but Naruto could see the quiet desperation in the girl’s eyes. He swallowed against whatever was caught in his throat and nodded.

He leapt away along with the three girls and tried to get his thoughts in order. He had always known killing was a fact of the shinobi life, and had thought that he would be ready when the time came for him to take a life.

But Kankuro hadn’t been his target and had been – sort of – helpless.

Bitter bile burned the back of Naruto’s throat as he barely kept the urge to vomit at bay.

He kept focus on nothing more than his next step forward as they put as much space as they could between themselves in the Suna team.

The sun peaked over the horizon in front of them, and Naruto hoped the next four days would have nothing worse in store for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it! Day 1 of 5 is done, and it was one heck of a day for Team Twelve, to say the least. Fighting Gaara at the genin level is straight unfair to everyone involved, but Naruto being Naruto managed to improvise a solution.
> 
> Even if it didn't work out the way he expected.
> 
> Temari poor Kankuro certainly learned a lesson of standing idly by while Gaara does all the work. At least, if he survives.
> 
> This kerfuffle between the Sand Siblings and Team Twleve will have implications in the future, and I cannot wait to keep pressing forward until I can explore them. I hope you all are still tuned in to see them!
> 
> In the meantime, please let me know what you think!


	13. Seven and the Sannin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm starting to go through the story from the beginning and really shore up the early chapters to improve the quality. So far, both chapters 1 and 2 have been nearly completely rewritten. Go give them a skim and let me know if you think the quality took one heck of a jump or if I've ruined everything.

“Naruto.”

He stared at the middle distance ahead, paying just enough attention to keep solid wood beneath his feet between every leap.

“Naruto?”

He flexed his hands, trying to ignore the lingering buzz and tingle left behind by the molding of his wind chakra. How it felt as it wrapped around this solid metal in his grip, whistling with deadly intent. How jubilant he was that he had gotten it to work at all.

“Naruto!”

A hand grabbed his shoulder, and it was all the jinchuriki could do to not sprawl forward, off balance and at the mercy of gravity.

Natsuko stared him down, sweat dripping from her brow and her breathing labored. “We need to rest, Naruto.” She nodded her head behind her and Naruto glanced to find Ayano supporting Karin with an arm over her shoulder. He blinked, surprised they were already so winded, but did not argue as Natsuko led the four genin down the gigantic tree to a point they could shelter within its roots.

“I’ll set up a perimeter,” Naruto said as Natsuko plopped to a seat the moment they were out of the midmorning daylight.

“Do you… want to talk?” Ayano asked, studying the way he moved in an attempt to impersonate Rin-sensei.

 _Yes_ , he thought.

“No,” he said, shaking his head and not meeting either of his teammates’ or their new ally’s eyes. The three needed to sleep, and if Naruto had been the only one to keep up with Gaara when they were on the A-game, he did not want to know what would happen if someone just as strong or _worse_ caught them when everyone was about to pass out. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

With his clones, it would take little time to set up basic traps that would give them enough warning to get the hell out, but he left a dozen shadow clones in the shelter beneath the roots, just in case.

He laid the warning system into place, running through habitual motions with little thought. Satisfied his teammates would be safe, Naruto climbed several levels higher and sat, watching the sun and trying not to think too hard on the battles before.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Natsuko said several minutes later, almost startling him enough to fall off his branch. “And I could sense you not coming back.”

“I’m keeping watch.”

She believed his excuse as much as he did, sitting next to him with a sarcastic “uh huh.”

Natsuko seemed happy to let that be the end of it as she pulled out the elemental cards she had grabbed off of Naruto and started to organize them. Naruto watched the process, wondering why he felt so indifferent at the prospect of passing.

“Four or five of everything but wind,” Natsuko said, shaking her head at the four piles in front of her. “They had to have gone through a _lot_ of teams, Naruto.”

“Any wind?” He asked, dodging her attempt to make him feel better.

“Nope. I asked Ayano before coming up here, and she thinks that’s how they’re trying to cut a bunch of teams.”

Naruto hummed his agreement.

Natsuko gave him a long look before she spoke again. “You knew this was going to happen one day.” Her words came hard despite her quavering voice, striking Naruto like a blow to the ribs. “Especially after what happened in Taki.”

“I _know_ ,” Naruto said, recalling Rin-sensei’s lectures as well as his teammate. “But I didn’t _mean_ to…” He trailed off, turning his head and closing his eyes as his stomach churned. He could have dealt with it if he had hit Gaara, but the brother hadn’t been fighting…

“It sucks,” Natsuko agreed. “But you have to deal with it, Naruto.”

He snapped his attention back to his teammate, found nothing but hard sympathy meeting his gaze, and felt the back of his eyes sting with unshed tears.

He pressed his face into his palms to hide them as they leaked out.

“We’re dead if you aren’t ready to go.” Natsuko’s tone softened, her tiredness shining through. “Ayano and I can’t do this without you.”

Naruto nodded behind his hands, took a breath, and forced himself back towards something approaching composure.

“Alright,” Naruto said after a long minute. “How do we figure out who has wind?”

\---

Karin hugged her legs to her chest, rubbing the bare skin beneath her shorts in a vain attempt to warm them up. The ground beneath the tree was moist, mossy, and freezing, and she lamented the need for stealth, longing for a fire.

“You came through the waypoint about two days ago, right?”

Karin blinked, having forgotten about her new companion. Her fellow redhead sat between two of the thicker roots, arms curled around her knees. She looked to Karin with a steady gaze despite the exhaustion clear behind the green of her eyes.

“Yes?”

The girl nodded. “I remember you arguing with Naruto.”

Karin turned her attention to a hole in the roots leading outside as if expecting the blond to be there. She reached out with her senses, and felt the boy’s chakra like a beacon some dozen or so meters above them.

“Now I’m sort of glad he pissed me off,” she said. “If he hadn’t remembered me…” She shuddered, trying not to remember how _terrifying_ the Suna shinobi had been.

“He would have intervened anyway,” the girl said with certainty. “We all would have.”

“Sure,” Karin said, not feeling up to arguing.

A quiet fell between them for only a moment before the other girl spoke again.

“I’m sorry about your teammates.”

Karin grit her teeth to swallow down bile as the memory played itself across her mind with unrelenting clarity. The confident swagger of her teammates brought low before the _demon_ that was the Suna genin. It had taken less than thirty seconds before the sand had trapped them, and their opponent showed no mercy.

They hadn’t had time to scream. From humans to pulped meat in the breadth of a single second.

She gripped her legs hard enough to bruise. If not for sheer, dumb luck, Karin knew she would have shared the assholes’ fate.

“We have enough cards,” the other girl said, drawing Karin back to the present. “If we find two wind, the others won’t argue if we give you a set.”

“…why?” _Konoha weakness,_ her sensei’s words echoed in her head, the flash his teeth bared in a snarl of a grin clear in her mind’s eye.

The Konoha genin shrugged and looked up to the ceiling, the cold coloring her cheeks.

“I figured if something…” she swallowed. “If something happened to Naruto or Natsuko, I would want to finish. Avenge them? Make it not meaningless?” She shook her head. “I can’t really imagine it.”

The girl’s chakra roiled around at the thought, matching the pained expression on her face.

“I don’t need charity,” Karin said, not caring to go into detail how it only bothered her _how_ her teammates died.

Green eyes met hers once more. “Then think of it like a mission. A fourth member of the team would give us an advantage. If we get out of this, your payment will be the five elemental cards.”

Karin considered the offer, relying on her senses to root out any insincerity, but found none. She could not deny that part of her still wanted to pass, even moreso now that two of her tormenters were gone. She looked away and hugged her arms, thumbs tracing the bite scars hidden beneath her sleeves.

“What’s your name?”

“Ayano,” the girl said, bowing her head.

Karin nodded. “Then consider me hired, Ayano.”

The girl’s smile got caught halfway in a grimace, but it was genuine, and Karin closed her eyes to steal what little rest she could.

\---

Sasuke kept his center of balance as he flipped over his attacker’s weapon, hands already flashing through the seals to his newest technique.

“ **Raiton: Tenohira Teiden!** ”

Just as he crossed over the Amegakure genin’s head, he lashed out, touching the edge of his hand to the back of his opponent’s neck. The boy collapsed with a pained cry and Sasuke twisted his landing to press his full weight into a knee in the middle of the genin’s back.

The genin passed out with a strangled gasp and Sasuke clicked his tongue, disappointed.

Well into the second day of the exam, and he still had not found anyone that tested him enough to use his sharingan **.** Shaking his head, he dug through the genin’s pockets and pouches until he found a white card bearing the kanji for wind.

 _That’s a second wind_ , he thought with a sigh, and turned to his teammates.

Ino frowned toward another Amegakure shinobi who rolled on the ground, laughing and frothing at the mouth despite the fresh line of scarlet cut down the side of his arm. The blonde stood over her opponent with a frown, holding two fire cards and twirling a kunai, lost in thought.

“New formula?” He asked, holding out his hand. Ino handed over the cards without a seconds’ thought, nodding.

“I might have made it a bit too intense,” she said, then reared back a kick which caught her drugged opponent in the back of the head. He joined his teammate in unconsciousness. “Psychedelics are hard to predict.”

He hummed, glad Kakashi had banned Ino from testing her experiments on her teammates. “Where’s Sakura?”

Ino blinked, glanced around them, then cursed. Sasuke grumbled, activating his sharingan - irises blooming to blood red and two tamoe spinning to life around his pupils - and tried to spot the telltale signs of battle.

“This way,” he said, seeing motion in the trees to the south and leaping to follow.

“Please don’t be a giant tiger this time,” Ino muttered behind him, and Sasuke had to clamp down on his embarrassed annoyance.

At least they had enough food for the week…

“—tch now!? Hah!”

They found Sakura less than two hundred meters away surrounded by senbon, huffing and puffing as she stood over an Amegakure kunoichi, who clawed at her face despite her rebreather covering everything but her eyes she had clenched shut. Sasuke heard the girl’s muffled screams and shared a glance with Ino, surprised, and let his dōjutsu slip away.

“Sasuke-kun, Ino!” Sakura grinned toward them, rising to her full height and holding out an elemental card with the kanji for water emblazoned on a blue background. Sasuke’s heart skipped a beat and he allowed himself a small smile.

“That’s all five!” Ino shouted with a cheer, leaping over their opponent and wrapping an arm around Sakura’s shoulders, drawing her into a one arm hug. “Sasuke-kun!”

They both held their arms open for a group hug, and Sasuke rolled his eyes, moving forward fast enough to snatch the water card from Sakura and duck under their attempt to trap him.

The pink haired girl hung her head in defeat, but Ino just stuck her tongue out at him.

“You’re no fun.”

Sasuke shrugged, flipping through the small deck of cards they’d gathered to pull out one of each before stuffing the several spares of each element save water back into one of his inner pockets.

“Let’s figure out where we’re going,” he said, dropping to one knee and laying the cards next to each other on the ground. The girls stood at his shoulder as he tried to figure out how to combine them.

“In less than two days! Impressive!”

Sasuke swept the cards back into his pockets while spinning himself to his feet in one smooth motion. Sakura and Ino flanked each of his shoulders, all their eyes locked on the newcomer. A kunoichi leapt down to their small clearing, clapping with a mocking air. She stood taller than the three, long black hair limp in framing her plain, pale face and held back by a Kusagakure hitai-ate. A beige tunic and thick, purple roped belt looked to offer little in the way of protection, but left plenty of room for hidden weapons.

Sasuke’s instincts screamed danger.

“Uchiha Sasuke,” the foreign girl said with an embellished bow, never taking her eyes off of him. “It is an honor to meet Konoha’s favorite genin.”

“Our reputation precedes us,” Ino said from his right, going for flippant and cocky. Sasuke caught the slight hesitation in her words. “Can’t say the same for you.”

The girl laughed. “I would be disappointed if you did, Yamanaka Ino.”

The blonde tensed and Sasuke let chakra flow into his eyes, activating his family’s bloodline anew. The Kusa girl’s lips twisted into a smile at the sight.

“The legendary sharingan,” she said, licking her lips and leaving Sasuke deeply unsettled. Killing intent began to lace through the air “How perfect.”

“Who the hell are you?” Sakura could not hide the shaking in her voice, and the strange kunoichi laughed, mocking.

“It does not matter,” she said, and _moved._

Sasuke’s eyes widened and he brought his hands together into an overhead block that caught the kunoichi’s kick full on. He grunted as his bones groaned at the contact.

Before he could recover his balance, the girl spun her momentum around to drive a punch toward his gut, and only letting himself stumble backwards allowed him to escape the blow. Ino and Sakura leapt back to surround the girl.

Sasuke did not dwell on his surprise at his opponent’s strength and launched a counterattack as soon as he found his balance. He attacked the girl in a flurry of taijutsu, the tomeo of his sharingan spinning to keep up with his opponent’s lightning-quick reflexes.

“Is this all?” She asked, dodging everything he could throw at her while wearing a grin. “I expected more.” She caught one of his fists, spun, and drove an elbow into his back to send him flying forward.

He bounced off the ground with a breathless grunt, already pushing the pain to the back of his mind, and glared at his opponent.

Whoever she was, she was no genin.

“ **Genjutsu: Sakura Burēdo no Dansu!** ” Sakura’s hands glowed blue as she tried to tag the kunoichi with her new technique, but her target bent backwards at the waist until her back was parallel to the ground so Sakura over extended enough to catch an elbow to the stomach.

His pink-haired teammate doubled over, eyes wide and mouth open in a soundless cry. The kunoichi followed it up with a knee to the jaw, sending Sakura flying backwards in a heap, unconscious.

 _Shit_. Sasuke pulled himself to his feet and raced forward to engage the foreign ninja before she could move in for a killing blow. His sharingan spotted Ino waiting off to the corner in a crouch, her fingers folded into her family jutsu’s signature seal, and Sasuke adjusted his approach to get their opponent’s back to the girl.

The kunoichi met his attack with another round of laughter, falling back from each blow with a mocking ease.

Sasuke kept his temper in check, changing his speed and angles of attack to corral his opponent into position.

“Come now Sasuke-kun. Show me your true power.”

He grunted, lashing out with a series of kicks to free up his hands to form seals. Electricity arced between each knuckle and his punches sped up, infused with the power of lightning chakra. The kunoichi flicked an eyebrow in interest, but still managed to dodge or turn away most of his attacks without any apparent effort.

“Not very efficient,” she noted, and Sasuke growled in frustration. This technique’s drain on his reserves made its usefulness limited.

If only Kakashi had taught him the damn **Chidori** …

“I had expected so much more from y—”

The kunoichi jerked her head to the left, and Sasuke’s sharingan picked up Ino’s body falling limp behind her before he lost control of his body.

Instinctive panic flooded his mind even as logic told him what had happened.

 _Shit, shit, shit, shit._ Ino’s voice echoed in his head, and Sasuke tried to shout at her to get _out_ , but nothing he tried made a sound.

The Kusa kunoichi pulled a kunai and flipped it behind her with a sickening smile.

 _My body_!

Control returned to Sasuke in a flash, disorientation driving him to his hands and knees with heavy breaths. Ino’s pained shout forced his focus and he looked in time to see the blonde clutching a wicked cut at the base of her neck along her right shoulder. Wide-eyed, his teammate backed away from their enemy in a three-limbed crabwalk as she reared her arm back to throw another pair of kunai.

“Your recovery is impressive for your clan,” the foreign girl said, almost mocking as she let deadly steel fly. Sasuke let loose a volley of shuriken to knock the weapon off its path, but he was off his mark.

Ino was better prepared, twisting herself as best she could, and dodged one entirely, but the second sliced into the meat of her calf.

Sasuke’s defiant shout drowned out Ino’s scream while he hoisted himself back to his feet and released a **Gōkakyū no Jutsu** at the enemy shinobi, point blank. To Sasuke’s confusion, his opponent saw the attack right away, but took the full brunt of the fireball with a grin and no attempt to dodge.

Her body burned, but she did not scream.

Sasuke forced himself not to dwell on the unsettling nature of the girl and leapt over the remnants of his technique to check on his teammate. Ino was already binding the wound on her leg, teeth locked into a grimace as she stemmed her bleeding in the worse of her two injuries.

Satisfied she was fine, he left to find Sakura laying in a heap just beyond the tree line, unconscious. A quick check to her pulse found it slow, but steady. He let out the barest whisper of a sigh and dug in his pouches for smelling salts.

The pink haired girl jerked away from them as soon as he brought them beneath her nose. She blinked, and rolled herself to her knees only to double over and clutch her middle with a choked whimper.

Sasuke grimaced, imagining what taking a full powered kick from their opponent would have done to her insides.

“Can you stand?”

She bit her lip and nodded, taking his arm as helped her to her feet. From the way she grunted with every step, Sasuke did not have to guess how much pain she was in.

_Need to finish before anyone else finds us._

Ino had dragged herself up to lean on a tree, applying a pressure bandage to the slice on her neck and shoulder.

“You okay?” She asked Sakura, wiping sweat from her forehead and leaving blood in its wake.

“I don’t know,” Sakura managed to say. She leaned most of her weight on Sasuke. “Everything feels like it’s been crushed by rocks.”

“Let’s figure out where we’re going. I want out of this damned forest.”

“A shame, that you would want to leave me so soon.”

Sasuke’s blood turned to ice as the same voice as the burned kunoichi spoke, dropping several octaves along the sentence.

The charred corpse in the clearing split down the middle, and Sasuke barely kept his stomach as a human-shaped figure _molted_ from within it. A man rose where a girl had been before, naked as the day of his birth. He had the same limp hair, the same pale skin, but his eyes were golden, his pupils the slit of snakes. Purple markings framed his eyes and ran down each side of his nose as if depicting fangs.

He smiled – fierce and mocking – before he spoke.

“So much potential, Sasuke-kun,” he said before his eyes cut to Ino and Sakura for the briefest of seconds. “ _Wasted_. All the power you could have, but you allow yourself be held back.”

“Who _are_ you?” Sakura asked and Sasuke felt her trembling.

Nonchalant, he said, “Orochimaru of the Sannin.”

Before Sasuke could register the name, an immense killing intent stole his breath and forced him to his knees. He struggled to bring in air, every muscle in his body trembling in protest of his commands.

It was almost as bad as Itachi’s had been the night his older brother massacred the clan.

Sasuke forced his eyes to track the Sannin as the man approached, a distant part of his brain registering that Ino and Sakura had collapsed entirely. He grit his teeth together and pushed all of his will against Orochimaru’s presence, managing to get one leg beneath him before his enemy was upon him.

The man laughed.

“Oh, this will be interesting.” Orochimaru leaned down close enough for Sasuke to feel his breath brush against his neck with every word he spoke. Sasuke’s stomach roiled, and bile burned the back of his throat. “Consider this a taste, Sasuke-kun, of all I can offer you.”

Orochimaru _bit_ Sasuke at the base of his neck, and his world faded to black.

\---

“Well we have to do _something_ , Forehead,” Ino shouted as loud as a whisper would allow, eyes alight with worry.

“I can’t carry _both_ of you, Ino-pig,” Sakura retorted, pulling a ninja wire taught around the final release in her trap. She fell to a seat heavily on the ground, grasping at her tortured middle and resting her eyes for a moment’s respite.

After waking up to find the S-class enemy gone and Sasuke writhing on the ground, unconscious and in pain, it had fallen to Sakura to find shelter. She had found an alcove between three of the forest’s overgrown trees shielded from above by a lattice of branches, and spent the better part of an hour dragging each of her crippled teammates to safety and setting up traps.

“Is his shoulder any better?” Ino asked, heat gone from her voice. Sakura glanced to their fallen teammate and frowned in worry. His collar had been ripped away and the point where his neck met his shoulder almost _glowed_ an angry red.

 There were no mistaking the teeth marks dug into Sasuke-kun’s skin.

Sakura shivered and shook her head.

“Damn it,” Ino cursed, before she looked to her own wounds. The bandages on her shoulder and leg were more red than white, now. “I’m going to bleed out, here.”

“I don’t have anything to sew them up,” Sakura said, cursing whoever thought of sending them into this forest without time to prepare. “But let me bind them up better.”

She was halfway through wrapping Ino’s leg in a bind tight enough to almost cut off circulation when her traps went off, setting off a series of explosions that used the last of her exploding tags.

She tied off her work and jumped to her feet, trying to ignore the pain in her belly as she edged out of their alcove to check to see if she had gotten anyone.

“—way too close!” A boy with spiky black hair yelled, holding a hand over his heart. He wore a beige trench coat with kanji for death repeated three times down its center. His dark eyes glared above him, to where Sakura’s net of ninja wire caught nobody.

A girl with jet black hair down to her ankles laughed. “You’re the only one that didn’t spot it, Zaku.” She crossed her bare arms and cocked her head to the side with a grin. “You’re lucky Dosu blasted you away from those tags.”

“I think he busted my shoulder,” Zaku complained, stretching out his left arm with a grimace.

“Quiet, both of you,” a third ninja said. She caught sight of his hitai-ate, unfamiliar with the musical note that rested where a village’s official symbol should have been. Most of his head and faced were wrapped in bandages with only his left eye free. It roamed the area around them. “The Uchiha is here.”

Her breath froze and she retreated back into the alcove. Ino had settled onto her knees in front of Sasuke, her hands locked in her family’s signature jutsu seal. Her grimace spoke volumes and Sakura hesitated to trust the blonde could pull it off in her state.

Sakura gulped and pulled a kunai, surprise would be their only advantage.

“You think, I thought the last Uchiha would come up with a better trap…”

“It was his teammate.” Dosu stepped in front of the gap between the trees and Sakura let metal fly.

Her kunai missed its mark as it was thrown off course by a _booming_ burst of wind. Zaku stepped next to Dosu, lowering his arm and frowning.

“We’re even,” the spiky haired kid said. Dosu just grunted, his free eye locked past Sakura onto Sasuke’s unconscious form.

“Well, our job just got easier,” the girl said, spinning a pair of senbon between her fingers, end over end.

“Don’t underestimate the Uchiha, Kin. It can still be a trap.”

“We don’t have any cards,” Sakura lied, stepping back closer to Ino and Sasuke. “They were already taken from us.”

The bandaged one chuckled. “Who cares?” He raised his arm, muttered something, and a jet of a pure force rocketed from beneath one of his sleeves, striking Sakura directly in the chest. Her feet left the ground and Sakura rolled end over end in the air, landing behind Sasuke in a heap.

A glance to her side showed Ino slumped forward as well, unconscious.

“One blow, for the whole team?” Kin asked, looking disgusted. “That’s ridiculous.”

“They were already weakened,” Dosu said, stepping forward. Sakura grit her teeth and, somehow, found it in her to pull herself to her feet.

“I won’t let you hurt them.” She struggled the words out through labored breaths, stepping around her fallen teammates.

“Then you will die here and—” Dosu was cut off as a kunai lodged straight through his left arm from behind. The boy roared in pain, ripping the weapon out of his flesh and leaping up and away from Sakura. Just outside the alcove, Zaku had turned on Kin and was doing his level best to take her out.

Sakura grinned.

“What the hell?” Kin shouted, deflected her mind controlled teammate’s attacks, giving ground rather than countering. “What the fuck is wrong with you Zaku?”

“It’s a Konoha trick! Kill him if you have to, Kin!”

Dosu dropped back down into the alcove, his arm bound and his visible eye wide and crazed, reminding Sakura of the time Kakashi-sensei had tricked them into believing he was going to kill them all.

Her throat went dry.

“If I kill the bitch, does Zaku get his mind back?” He asked, walking forward.

Sakura formed the hand seal to her best genjutsu behind her back, hoping it would work on Dosu as it had not on Orochimaru.

She charged as quickly as she could push her exhausted muscles to work, rearing back her chakra laced palm to strike at his chest. Dosu dodged her strike and brought his right arm into her gut. She felt cold metal for a brief second before a ball of air _pulsed_ out of his limb and knocked her back once more.

She landed and tasted blood as Dosu raised a kunai to strike at Ino’s unconscious body.

“I-Ino!” She managed to call out, spluttering, coughing, and curling around her middle as her lungs and gut radiated agony at the small effort.

Kin screamed, Dosu cursed, and Ino stumbled away, crouching over Sasuke-kun with a defiant grin.

“She killed him!” Kin shouted, running around the corner, blood covering her entire front. “He sliced his own fucking neck. I’ll fucking kill you, you bitch!” She made to attack, but Dosu held her back.

“No more games!” He swept his sleeve away from his right arm, revealing metal where there should have been flesh and blood. It ran down his arm from his elbow, ending in a hold that gathered chakra at its center. “Die!”

Sakura closed her eyes and felt the air pressure drop like the moments before a storm, and thunder _roared_.

Seconds later, she was not dead, and chanced a glance through cracked eyelids.

Ino had been knocked away and unconscious, but Sasuke stood in front of their attacker, chakra lightning flaring in his hand as he held onto Dosu’s weapon in an unforgiving grip. The foreign ninja writhed under Sasuke’s attack, muscles twitching and limbs flailing as electricity arced through them, but he did not scream.

The smell of burning clothes, hair, and skin dominated the air, and Sakura’s stomach churned.

“What— what the fuck are you?” Kin had stumbled backward onto the ground, watching Sasuke with the same fear she had looked to inspire moments ago.

Sasuke dropped Dosu and the shinobi dropped to the ground in a boneless heap, his visible eye staring at Sakura through Sasuke’s legs with the glassy tint found only in death.

Sasuke didn’t say a word as he turned his attention to the foreign kunoichi, who scrambled back in a crabwalk once his attention was on her.

“St-stay away!”

Faster than Sakura had ever seen him manage it, Sasuke ran through the seals for his first jutsu, and a grand fireball crossed the distance between him and their enemy in a flash.

Kin did not get the chance to do more than scream as Sasuke’s attack incinerated her whole.

“Weak.”

Sakura tore her eyes away from the spot where Kin simply _wasn’t_ any more, and found Sasuke staring at her and Ino with pure _hatred_ visible in his eyes despite his sharingan.

Black, flame-like markings radiated out over his skin, covering half his face and stemming from angry wound on his neck. Every one of Sakura’s instincts cried out with how _wrong_ it was.

“Sasuke-kun,” she managed to say, but killing intent flooded the area the moment she spoke. Compared to Orochimaru’s it was nothing, but Sakura was on her last legs.

“Holding me back,” he said at a whisper before stepping forward, only to stumble and clutch at his neck. He fell to one knee with a pained cry, and the markings faded from his skin as his eyes reverted from sharingan red to their natural black. He blinked, confused, before pitching forward into the dirt, face first.

Sakura tried to move, but could not force any of her limbs to follow her commands. Frustrated, distraught tears flowed freely as darkness crept the edge of her vision, and the last thing Sakura registered before succumbing to unconsciousness was a flash of orange in the distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So I'm not really feeling this one too much. I wasn't one hundred percent sure how I was going to play the Orochimaru/Team Dosu interactions with Sasuke without Naruto in the mix, and let the characters guide me. Both Sakura and Ino are better off at this point than they were in canon, but there is still a huge gap between them and Sasuke.
> 
> Ignoring the Grand Canyon between all three of them and Orochimaru.
> 
> I'm going to be playing with how the different dynamics of this story's Team 7 and the other rookies will affect Sasuke in the future. Let me know what you think!
> 
> One more chapter for the second exam, I think, and then we're on to the preliminaries. Thanks for sticking with me, folks.
> 
> Brief Technique Glossary:
> 
> Raiton: Tenohira Teiden (Lightning Release - Blackout Palm) - User creates a layer of lightning chakra around their palm, stunning, immobilizing, or killing anything it touches depending on the strength used and the target's resistance.
> 
> Genjutsu: Sakura Burēdo no Dansu (Genjutsu: Dance of the Sakura Blades) - Sakura creates a situation in the target's mind that has them in a middle of a cherry blossom field, but each petal cuts as if it were a blade.


End file.
